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THE LECTURES 

OP 

LOLA "MONTE Z. 

WITH A FULL AND COMPLETE ^ "7 s^ 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HER LIFE. 

AS WELL AS HE|l CELEBRATED LECTURES ON 

'^BEAUTIFUL WOMEN," ^^ GALLANTRY," ^^ COMIC ASPECT 

OF LOVE," '^HEROINES OF HISTORY," ''WITS AND 

WOMEN OF PARIS," "ROMANISM," ETC. 



< < 






^' 



rKOM THE AMEKICAN LAW JOUKNAL. 
<« Let Lola Montez have credit for her talents, intelligence, and her support of 
popular ri^^hts. As a political character she held, until her retirement from 
Switzerland, an important position in Bavaria and Germany, besides having 
agents and correspondents in various parts of Europe. On foreign politics she has 
clear ideas, and has been treated by the political men of the country as a sub- 
stantive power She alwav.t kept state s<^erets, and could be consulted in safety 
in cases in which lipr orio-i"nal habits of thonsjht rendered her of service. Acting 
UDder ber advice, the king had pledged himself to a course of steady improvement 
to tlie people. Althonu-h she wieUled so nnich power, it is alleged that she never 
u^ed it for the promotion of nnworthv persons, or, as other favorites have doue, 
foi ciu-nuu purpo.M-s; and thei'e is reason to believe thi-.t political feeliug infla- 
euced her course, not sordid cousideratious." 




T. B. PETERSON AND BROTHERS, 

306 CHESTNUT STREET. 



-&$ 



* J\<*f 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1858, by 

EUDD & CAELETON, 

In tlie Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of the United States for tke Southera 

District of New Yoik. 



EXTEACT FEOM THE AMERICAN LAW JOURIAL. 



* Let Lola Montez have credit for her talents, intelli- 
gence, and her support of popular rights. As apolitical 
character, she held, until her retirement from Switzer- 
land, an important position iq Bavaria and Germany, 
besides having agents and correspondents in various 
parts of Europe. On foreign politics she has clear ideas, 
and has been treated by the political men of the country 
as a substantive power. She always kept state secrets, 
and could be consulted in safety in cases in which her 
origiual habits of thought rendered her of service. Act- 
ing under her advice, the king had pledged himself to a 
course of steady improvement to the people. Although 
she wielded so much power, it is alleged that she never 
used it for the promotion of unworthy persons, or, as 
other favorites have done, for corrupt piixjj^o.^e^; and 
there is reason to believe that political feeling iafluenced 
her course, not sordid considerations." 



Contents. 



CHAP. 






FACE 


I. 


Autobiography. Part I., . 


• • ( 


. 9 


II. 


'' II.,. 




• 55 


III. 


Beautiful Women, • . 




. . 83 


IV. 


Gallantry, 




. 125 


V. 


Heroines of History, 




. 171 


VI. 


Comic Aspect of Love, . 




. Z07 


\^n 


Wits and Women of Paris, 




• 23' 




humanism, , . » 




. 2&; 



AUTOBIOGRAP HY, 



Part I. 



AUTOBI OGRAPHY 
Part I. 



#•» 



The right of defining one's position seems to be a 
very sacred privilege in America, and I must avail 
myself of it, in entering upon tlie novel business of 
this lecture. Several leading and influential journals 
have more than once called for a lecture on Lola 
Montez, and as it is reasonably supposed that I am 
about as well acquainted with that ^' eccentric" indi- 
vidual (as the newspapers call her) as any lady in 
this country, the task of such an undertaking has 
fallen upon me. 

It is not a pleasant duty for me to perform. For, 
however fearless, or if you please, however impudent 



12 Autobiography. 

I may be in asserting and maintaining my opinions 
and my rights, yet I must confess to a great deal of 
diffidence when I come to speak personally of one so 
nearly related to me as Lola Montez is. As Burns 
says, "we were girls together." The smiles and 
tears of our childhood, the joys and sorrows of our 
girlhood, and the riper and somewhat stormy events 
of womanhood, have all been shared with her. There- 
fore, you will perceive, that to speak of her, is the 
very next thing to speaking of myself. 

But though we are friends of such long standing, I 
have not come to be the eulogist or apologist of Lola 
Montez ; I am not quite sure that she would accept 
such a service even from her best friend. 

A woman, like a man of true courage, instinctively 
prefers to face the public deeds of her life, rather than, 
by cowardly shifts, to skulk and hide away from Ler 
own historical presence. 

Perhaps the noblest courage, after all, is to dare to 
meet one's self — ^to sit down face to face with one's 
own life, and confront all those deeds which may 



Autobiography. 1 3 

have influenced tlie mind or manners of society, for 
good or evil. 

As applied to women, of course tMs remark can be 
true only of those who have, to some extent, per- 
formed tasks usually imposed upon men. That is, 
she must have performed some deeds which have left 
their mark upon society, before she can come within 
the rule. 

An inane piece of human wax- work, whose life has 
consisted merely of powdering, drinking tea, going 
to the opera, flirting, and sleeping, has had no life 
to be taken into the count in this connexion. She 
may have been useful, as a pretty piece of statuary, to 
fill a nook in a private house, or as a pleasant piece 
of furniture for a drawing-room; but there are no 
rules of her moral and social being which can justly 
be applied to one whose more positive nature forces 
her out into the mighty field of the world, where the 
crowd and crush of opposing interests come together 
in the perpetual battle of life. 

What can a woman do ouj there who cannot take 



14 Autobiographyo 

her part ! A good tea-drinker — a merely good drawing • 
room flirt, would make a very sorry sliift of it, I fear ! 
Slie must have a due degree of the force of resistance 
to be able to stand in tbose tidal stocks of the world, 
Alas ! for a woman whose circumstances, or whose na- 
tural propensities and powers push her forward beyond 
the line of the ordinary routine of female life, unless 
she possesses a saying amount of that force of resist- 
ance. Many a woman who has had strength to get 
outside of that line, has not possessed the strength to 
stand there ; and the fatal result has been that she has 
been swept down into the gulf of irredeemable sin. 
The great misfortune was that there was too much of 
her to be held within the prescribed and safe limits 
allotted to vroman; but there was not enough to 
enable her to stand securely beyond the shelter of 
conventional rules. 

Within this little bit of philosophy there is a key 
which unlocks the dark secret of the fall and ever- 
lasting ruin of many of the most beautiful and natu* 
rally-gifted women in the world. 



Autobiography. 15 

Thei'e was as mncli trntli as wit in the old writer 
wlio said that ^' the woman of extraordinary beaaty, 
who has also sufficient intellect to render her of an 
independent mind, ought also to be able to assume 
the quills of the porcupine in self-defence." 

At any rate, such is the social and moral fabric of 
the world, that woman must be content with an ex- 
ceedingly narrow sphere of action, or she must take 
the worst consequences of daring to be an innovator 
and a heretic. She must be either the servant or the 
spoiled plaything of man ; or she must take the re- 
sponsibility of making herself a target to be shot at 
by the most corrupt and cowardly of her own sex, 
and by the ill-natured and depraved of the opposite 
gender. 

Daniel O'Connell used to be proud of being, as he 
said, " the best abused man in the world." I do not 
know whether Lola Montez has been the best abused 
woman in the world or not, bu.t she has been pretty 
well abused at any rate ; and has the honor, I be 
lieve, of having caused more newspaper paragraphs 



i6 



Autobiography. 



and more biograpMes tban any woman living. I have, 
myself, seen twenty-tbree or twenty-four pretended 
biograpbies of Lola Montez ; not one of wbicb, bow- 
ever, came any nearer to being a biograpby of ber, 
tban it did to being an autbentic bistory of tbe man 
in tbe moon. Seven cities claimed old Homer, but 
tbe biograpbers bave given Lola Montez to more 
tban tbree times seven cities. And a laugbable tbing 
is, tbat not one of all tbese biograpbers bas yet bit 
upon tbe real place of ber birtb. One makes ber 
born in Spain, anotber in Greneva, anotber in Cuba, 
anotber in India, anotber in Turkey, and so on. And 
at last, a certain fugitive from tbe gallows will 
bave it, tbat sbe was born of a wasberwoman in 
Scotland. And so of ber parentage — one autbor 
makes ber tbe cbild of a Spanisb gipsy ; anotber, tbe 
daugbter of Lord Byron ; anotber, of a native prince 
of India, and so on, until tbey bave given ber more 
fatbers tban tbere are signs in tbe zodiac. 

I declare, if I were Lola Montez, I sbould begin to 
doubt wbetber I ever bad a fatber, or wbetber I was 



Autobiography. in 

ever born at all, except in some sucb fashion aa 
Minerva was said to be— born of the brain of Jupiter. 

Lola Montez has bad a more difficult time to get 
born than even that, for sbe has bad to be born over 
and over again of the separate brain of every man 
who has attempted to write her history. 

Happily, however, I possess the means of settling 
this Confused question, and of relieving the doubts 
of this unfortunate lady in relation to her parentage 
and birthplace'; while I may at the same time gratify 
the curiosity of those who have honored me with 
their presence here to-night. 

Lola Montez was then actually born in the city of 
Limerick, in the year of our Lord, 1824. I hope she 
will forgive me for telling her age. Her father was 
a son of Sir Edward Gilbert; and his mother, Lady 
Gilbert, was considered, I believe, one of the hand- 
somest women of her time. The mother of Lola was 
an Oliver, of Castle Oliver, and her family name was 
of the Spanish noble family of Montalvo, descended 
from Count de Montalvo, who once possessed im- 



1 8 Autobiography, 

mense estates in Spain, all of wMcli were lost in the 
wars with, tlie French, and other nations. The Mon- 
talvos were originally of Moorish, blood, who came 
into Spain at the time of Ferdinand and Isabella the 
Catholic. So that the fountain-head of the blood 
which courses in the veins of the erratic Lola Montez 
is Irish and Moorish-Spanish — a somewhat combus- 
tible compound it must be confessed. 

Her father, the young Gilbert, was made an ensign 
in the English, army when lie was seventeen years 
old, and before he was twenty, he was advanced to 
the rank of Captain of the 44th Kegiment. He was 
but little more than twenty at the time of his mar- 
riage, and ber mother was about fifteen. Lola was 
born during the second year of this marriage — 
making ber little debut upon this sublunary stage 
in the midst of tbe very honeymoon of the young 
people, and when they had hardly time to give 
a proper reception to so extraordinary a per- 
sonage. 

She was baptized by the name of Marie Doloees 



Autobiography* 19 

Eliza Eosanna Gilbeet. Slie was always caJed 
Dolores, the diminutiye of wMch. is Lola. 

Soon after tlie birtli of this Dolores, the 44th 
Regiment, of which her father was a captain, was 
ordered to India, I have heard her mother say that 
the passage to India lasted about four months — that 
they landed at Calcutta, where they remained about 
three years, when the Governor^General, Lord Hast- 
ings, ordered the 44th Eegiment to Dinapore, some 
distance in the interior, upon the Ganges. Soon 
after the army arrived at this spot, the cholera broke 
out with terrible violence, and her father was among 
its first victims. There was a young and gallant 
officer by the name of Craigie, whom her father 
loved, and when dying and too far gone to speak, 
he took his child and wife's hand and put them in 
the hand of this young officer, with an imploring 
look, that he would be kind to them when death had 
done its work. 

The mother of Lola Montez was thus left a widow 
before she was eighteen years old; and she waa 



20 Autobiography^ 

confided to tlie care and protection of Mrs. General 
Brown. You can have but a faint conception of the 
responsibility of the charge of a handsome, young 
European widow in India. 

The hearts of a hundred officers, young and old, 
beat all at once with such violence for her, that the 
whole atmosphere for ten miles round fairly throbbed 
with the emotion. But in this instance the general 
fever did not last long, for Captain Craigie led the 
young widow Gilbert to the altar himself. He was 
a man of high intellectual accomplishments, and soon 
after this marriage his regiment was ordered back 
to Calcutta, and he was advanced to the rank of 
major. 

At this time the child Lola was little more than 
six years old, when she was sent to Europe to the 
care of Major Craigie's father at .Montrose, in Scot- 
land. This venerable man had been provost of 
Montrose for nearly a quarter of a century, and the 
dignity of his profession, as well as the great respect- 
ability of the family, made every event connected 



Autobiography^ 2 1 

witli his household a matter of some puHic note, and 
the arrival of the queer, wayward, httle East Indian 
girl was immediately known to all Montrose. The 
peculiarity of her dress, and I dare say not a little 
eccentricity in her manners, served to make her an 
object of curiosity and remark ; and very likely the 
child perceived that she was somewhat of a public 
character, and may have begun, even at this early 
age, to assume airs and customs of her own. 

"With this family, however, she remained but a 
short time, when her parents bee rime somehow 
impressed with the idea that she wa'^ being petted 
and spoiled, and she was removed to ^he family of 
Sir Jasper Nichols, of London, comm-*nder-in-chief 
of the Bengal forces. His family rema'^ed in Paris 
for the sake of educating their daugh'^ers. After 
several years in Paris, Miss Fanny N'ich'>!s and the 
young Lola were sent to Bath for eiphtcen months to 
undergo the operation of what is prop<*^ly called 
j&nishing their education. At the CTpiratiot's. pf this 
fiuishing campaign, Lola's mother e^.me fror^ India 



22 Autobiography. 

for the purpose of taking lier daughter back witb her. 
She was then fourteen years old ; and from the first 
moment of her mother's arrival, there was a great hub- 
bub of new dresses, and all manner of extravagant 
queer-looking apparel, especially for the wardrobe of 
a young girl of fourteen years. The little Dolores 
made bold enough one day to ask her mother what 
this was all aboutj and received for an answer that it 
did not concern her — -that children should not be 
inquisitive, nor ask idle questions. But there was a 
Captain James of the army in India, who came out 
with her mother, who informed the young Lola that 
all this dressmaking business was for her own wedding 
clothes, that her mother had promised her in mar- 
riage to Sir Abraham Lumly, a rich and gouty old 
rascal of sixty years, and Judge of the Supreme 
Court in India. This put the first fire to the maga- 
zine. The little madcap cried and stormed alter- 
nately. The mother was determined, so was her 
child. The mother was inflexible, so was her child, 
and in the wildest language of defiance she told her 



Autobiography. 23 

that she never would be thus thrown ahve into the 
jaws of death. 

Here, then, was one of those fatal family quarrels, 
where the child is forced to disobey parental authority, 
or to throw herself away into irredeemable wretched- 
ness and ruin. It is certainly a fearful responsibility 
for a parent to assume of forcing a child to such alter- 
natives. But the young Dolores sought the advice 
and assistance of her mother's friend, Captain James. 
He was twenty-seven years of age, and ought to have 
been capable of giving good and safe counsel. In 
tears and despair she appealed to him to save her 
from this detested marriage- — a thing which he cer- 
tainly did most effectually, by eloping with her the 
next day himself. The pair went to Ireland, to Cap- 
tain James's family, where they had a great muss in 
trying to get married. No clergyman could be found 
who would marry so young a child without a mother's 
consent. The captain's sister put off for Bath, to try 
ai]d get the mother's consent. At first she would not 
listen, but at last good sense so far prevailed as to make 



24 Autobiography. 

her see tliat notMng but evil and sorrow could come 
of her refusal, and she consented, but would neither 
be present at the wedding, nor send her blessing. So 
in flying from that marriage with ghastly and gouty 
old age, the child lost her mother, and gained what 
proved to be only the outside shell of a husband, 
who had neither a brain which she could respect, nor 
a heart which it was possible for her to love. Eun- 
away matches, like run-away horses, are almost sure 
to end in a smash-up. 

My advice to all yoimg girls who contemplate 
taking such a step, is. that they had better hang or 
drown themselves just one hour before they start. 

Captain James remained with his child- wife eight 
months in Ireland, when he joined his regiment in 
India. The first season of Lola's life in India was 
spent in the gay and fashionable city of Calcutta, 
after which time the regiment was ordered to Kurwal, 
in the interior. 

The fashion of travelling in India I fancy can never 
ho made agreeable to an American or a European — 



Autobiography. 25 

certainly not to one of kind and humane feelings ; for 
human beings are there used to perform the of&ce of 
horses, carrying you on their shoulders in a palan- 
quin. A palanquin is a kind of square box, hand- 
somely painted outside, with soft cushions inside, and 
side-lamps like a carriage. To each palanquin there 
are usually eight bearers, four of whom are employed 
at a time. It is astonishing to see the amount of 
fatigue which these human horses will endure. But I 
have seen the poor creatures almost sink down with 
exhaustion, as they set down their burden after a long 
journey through the burning sun, that would almost 
kill a man to sit still in twenty minutes. But still, as 
human nature will somehow adapt itself to whatever 
circumstances may surround it, these hapless beings 
contrive to make a nlerry life among themselves. 
You will hear them sing their jolly songs under their 
heavy biirdens. The chants of the palanquin bearers 
are sometimes very amusing, and will serve to give 
you an idea of the native genius of India. Though 

they keep all the time to the same sing-song tune, yet 

2 



26 Autobiography. 

tliej generally invent the words as they go along. I 
will give yon a sample, as well as it could be made 
'ontj of what I heard them sing, while carrying an 
English clergyman who conld not have weighed less 
than two hundred and twenty-five pounds. I must 
premise that palkee is the Hindostanee word for 
palanquin, and each line of the following jargon was 
sung in a different voice : — 

Oh, what a heavy bag I 

No ; it is an elephant ; 

He is an awful weight 

Let's throw his palkee down — 

Let's set him in the mud — 

Let's leave him to his fate. 

No, for he'll be angry then ; 

Ay, and he'll beat us then 

With a thick stick. 

Then let's make haste and get along, 

Jump along quick. 

And off they started in a jog-trot, which must have 
shaken every bone in his reverence's body, keeping 
chorus all the time of "jump along quick, jump 



Autobiography. 27 

along quick," until they were obliged to stop for 
laughing. 

They invariably suit these extempore chants to the 
weight and character of their burden. I remember to 
have been exceedingly amused one day at the merry 
chant of my human horses as they started off on the 
run. I must mention, that cabhada means 'Hake 
care," and harbd means "young lady." 

She's not heavy, 

Cabbada ! 
Little barba, 

Cabbada I 
Carry her swiftly, 

Cabbada I 
Pretty barba, 

Cabbada ! 

And so they went on singing and extemporising 
for the whole hour and a half's journey. It is quite 
a common custom to give them fou^r annas (or Eiig- 
glish sixpence) apiece, at the end of every stage 
when fresh horses are put under the burden ; but a gen- 



28 Autobiography. 

tleman of my acquaintance, who had been carried too 
slowly, as he thought, only gave them two annas 
apiece The consequence was that during the next 
stage, the men not only went much faster, but tliey 
make him laugh with their characteristic song, the 
whole burden of which was, "He has only given 
them two annas^ because they went slowly ; Let us 
make haste and go along quickly, and then we shall 
get eight annas and have a good supper." 

The native princes of India generally possessed 
great wealth, as I may illustrate by a description of 
the grand reception given by Eunjeet Singh of 
Sind, to Lord Auckland and the British army on its 
way to Cabul. Eunjeet Singh was one of the richest 
and most powerful of the native princes of India, and 
this grand^reception took place at his chief city of La- 
hore, on the banks of the Indus. 

This prince had tents erected to receive the whole 
British army. My father, who was Adjutant-General 
of the army in India, was there with my mother. 
The tents erected for the officers were lined with gold 



Autobiography. ' 29 

and silver trimmings, and with, tlie ricliest cashmere 

Bliawls. The Indian prince gave an audience to the 

British, officers in a palace, the walls of which, were 

studded withi agates, cornelians, turquoises, and every 

kind of precious stone; and the officers, servants, 

and even elephants of the prince were also covered 

with jewels. My mother, with, several other wives 

of the British officers, was present at this magnificent 

audience. After the consultation, the prince, dressed 

in a perfectly white muslin, with, no jewels except 

those' in hiis turban, took his seat on a throne of gold, 

and Lord Auckland was placed on another golden 

throne representing the throne of England. 

After this ceremony came in, according to th.e 

custom of the country, the rich, presents for tbe 

English, officers, which, were distributed with, strict 

reference to th.e rank of each, officer. These presents 

consisted of trays full of tbe most precious stones and 

jewels. My mother described what a lapful of 

these precious things was presented to her — every 

one of which, however, she bad to give up to the 
3 



30 Autobiography. 

» 

government — ^for I ouglit to tell you that every British 
officer in India is obhged to take an oath that he will 
faithfully give up to government all presents that 
may be given him by the native princes. Every 
month there is a public sale of all such gifts, which 
has been an immense wealth to the East India 
Company. 

Well, after all these splendid gifts from the Indian 
prince. Lord Auckland ordered in the presents which 
the English had provided for the prince and his 
officers, which consisted of imitation gold and silver 
ornaments, swords, rusty old pistols, and all sorts of 
trumpery, which Eunjeet Singh received without 
moving a muscle of his face. 

But the most extraordinary gift of the great prince 
was yet to come. He gave a splendid dance in the 
evening to the British officers, at which the most 
beautiful dancing girls of his harem were presented. 
These beautiful girls were all Circassian and Georgian 
slaves of the prince. There were just as many of 
them present as there were British officers, and each 



Autobiography. 31 

girl had a forttme of jewels and precious stones on 
her person. At the conclusion of the dance, the 
prince presented each of her majesty's officers with 
one of these richly loaded girls as a present — giving 
the richest and most beautiful one to the highest 
officers, and so down the regular gradations of 
rank. 

The peculiar looks on the faces of the English 
officers that followed this scene, I shall not attempt to 
describe. But I can easily imagine with what a sad 
countenance old Lord Auckland informed the prince 
that English law and English civilization did not 
quite allow her majesty's officers to receive such a 
peculiar kind of presents, and I am afraid that the 
young officers — no — ^the gentlemen who hear me can 
so much better appreciate their disappointment than 
I can, that it will be folly for me to attempt to 
describe it. 

As a singular example of the romance often found 
m the history of the native rulers of India, I may 
refer to a famous queen of a province near Merut, 



32 



Autobiography. 



wlio by lier great tact and diplomacy managed to keep' 
her possessions, and obtain many favors from the 
English government. She began life as a dancing 
girl, and one of the commonest of her profession at 
that. But she was very beautiful, it was said, when 
yonng. The old king of the province had a grand 
dance, and among five hundred girls she appeared, 
and so won the admiration of the monarch, that he 
had her engaged to sing and dance regularly at his 
court. Little by little she won his heart until he 
married her, and raised her to the queenly dignity. 
For some time all went on well, the bewitching young 
queen really being the king herself. At length there 
came into that little kingdom an adventurer, a 
European, by the name of Dyce Sombre, who entered 
the army of the Indian king. He was young and 
very handsome, and the charming queen took a fancy 
to him, which soon ripened into an intrigue, and she 
at once set about a plan to get the old king out of the 
way. With daring ingenuity she projected a revolu- 
tion, and fired the old king up with most desperate 



Autobiography. 33 

determinations in resisting it, at the same time telling 
him she was determined not to survive his defeat, and 
she assured him that if the battle was lost, she woiild 
send him a handkerchief soaked in her blood ; and 
she did dip the handkerchief in somebody's blood, 
and sent it to her despairing lord, who himself pre- 
ferred death to defeat, and did what he supposed was 
following his queen to the other world. But she had 
prudently, though most wickedly, stayed behind, in 
the company of the handsome foreigner. She after- 
wards had a son, who was acknowledged by the Eng- 
lish government as heir to her throne. She grew to 
be very jealous of her husband, and when she one 
day caught him looking at a beautiful young girl, she 
instantly sent for some workmen, and had a deep hole 
dug under her footstool, and into this she had the 
young girl plunged and buried alive. When I saw 
this remarkable woman, she was shrivelled u.p a little, 
dre^^ed in plain white, without a single jewel 01 
ornament upon her person. On her death, the British 

government abolished her throne and pensioned her 

2* 



34 Autobiography. 

son, wliicli was tlie way it kept its promise to the 
queen. 

I have dwelt upon this httle episode of kingly love, 
because it illustrates the fact, that the native princes 
of India sometimes continue to imitate the more 
refined manners of civilized courts. 

The native princes of India were generally slaves 
to their senses, and many of them were ruled by the 
wUl or caprice of their fair and fascinating ladies. 
The powerful Eaja of Jypur became such a slave to 
an infatuated attachment to a beautiful Mahomedan 
dancing girl, that he lost nearly all his hereditary pos- 
sessions ; and what was spared, was from the suffer- 
ance of Ameer Khan. 

There was another instance in Tulasi Bai, a woman 
of low extraction, whose beauty captured and enslaved 
the mind of Malhar Eao ; and so well did she play her 
cards, that after the death of the prince she was made 
Regent to his successor, the young Holkar. Her 
regency gave the British government, and the British 
army, the greatest embarrassments. It was through 



Autobiography. 35 

her instrumentality that a general confederacy was 
made against tlie English. But the fortunes of war 
threw this female general into their hands, and so 
much were her skill and power dreaded, that she was 
carried immediately to the banks of a river, where 
her head was severed from her body, and her body 
thrown into the stream, as if determined to make it 
doubly sure that she was really out of the way. This 
beautiful and powerfal woman was not thirty years of 
age at the time of her death. 

The respectable women of the natives never appear 
in public — never go to parties — never look upon the 
face of a man, except a member of their family. 
They consider it an irreparable disgrace if their faces 
should be seen by a stranger. 

If a stranger visits a family, he may converse with 
the lady on the other side of a thickly wadded curtain 
• — ^but that is considered a mark of great favor to a 
visitor. I have known some of the more liberal 
allow their wives to shake hands with a particular 
friend, through a hole ! 



36 Autobiography. 

These native women of India are often very beau« 
tifiil. And you may have a curiosity to know if they 
ever have any intrigues ? You can judge for your- 
selves what chance there can be. Such a thing, 
if found out, would be instant death. The natives 
of India are not much like that amiable American 
who told an affectionate neighbor, that if he ever 
caught him kissing his wife again, there would be a 
coolness grow up between them. But the women of 
India do sometimes elude the vigilance of their jea- 
lous lords. Still, as a general thing, India in this par- 
ticular gives the lie to the ^Id proverb that, " Where 
there is a will there is a way." 

The jewels worn by these native women are of 
great beauty and cost ; and those well to do in the 
world, will have a different dress for every day in the 
year. Does not that beat Fifth Avenue ? I may add 
that these women are horribly jealous, and very vin- 
dictive, as all orientals are. It would take a mis- 
sionary his lifetime to make one of them understand 
the motives of a fashionable European or an Ameri« 



Autobiography. 37 

can lady, wlio will often take a great deal of pains to 
get lier husband into an actual flirtation with some 
other woman. The women of India do not exactly 
understand the philosophical principle involved in 
the proposition that a husband cannot see two ways 
at once. 

The European and American women are so much 
better educated than their sisters in India. 

But we left Lola Montez on her journey to Karwal, 
where, after some little general pleasure-riding, she was 
taken to visit a Mrs. Lomer — a pretty woman, who 
was about thirty-three years of age, and was a great 
admirer of Capt. James. Her husband was a blind 
fool enough ; and though Captain James's little wife, 
Lola, was not exactly a fool, yet it is quite likely she 
did not care enough about him to keep a look-out 
upon what was going on between himself and Mrs. 
Lomer. So she used to be peacefully sleeping every 
morning when the Captain and Mrs. Lomer were off 
to a sociable ride on horseback. In this way 
things went on for a long time, when one morning 



38 Autobiography. 

Captain James and Mrs. Lomer did not get back to 
breakfast— and so the little Mrs. James and Mr. 
Lomer breakfasted alone, wondering what bad become 
of the morning riders. 

But all doubts were soon cleared up by tbe fact 
coming fully to ligbt, that they bad really eloped to 
Neilgbery Hills. Poor Lomer stormed, and raved, and 
tore himself to pieces, not having the courage to 
attack anybody else. And little Lola wondered, cried 
a little, and laughed a good deal, especially at Lomer's 
rage. Finally, all the officers' wives got together and 
held a consultation over her, as to what was to be 
done with her. At first she was confided to the care 
of a Mrs. Palmer. Then it was afterwards resolved 
that it was best to send her to her mother at Calcutta. 
This was a bitter necessity for her, for she dreaded her 
mother ; she knew that she had never been forgiven 
the elopement, and now to be sent to her after the 
fatal Jfruits of that folly were so apparent, was indeed 
a bitter necessity. 

The meeting of the mother and the child was by 



Autobiography. 39 

no means a pleasant one. The latter was locked up 
in a cliamber, and confined, till her mother procured 
a certificate from a doctor that the little prisoner was 
in ill health, and must be sent to Europe. General 
Craigie, her step-father, certainly thought this treat- 
ment unusually severe, if not unwise. Large tears 
rolled down his cheeks when he took her on board 
the vessel ; and he testified his affection and his care, 
by placing in the hand of the little grass- widow a 
check for a thousand pounds on a house in London. 
She. was to be sent to the care of a branch of the 
Craigie family, which lived at Perth, in Scotland ; and 
an American familj^, Mr. and Mrs. Sturges, who are, 
I think, yet living in Boston, were intrusted with the 
care of her on shipboard. There was also a Mrs. 
Stevens, another American lady, on board, who was a 
very gay woman, and who had some influence in sup- 
porting the determination of Lola not to go to the 
Craigies' on her landing in London. But Mr. David 
Craigie, who was a blue Scotch Calvinist, was there on 
her arrival to take her home. She refused to ga 



40 Autobiography. 

At first lie used arguments and persuasion, and find- 
ing that these failed, he tried force, and then, of 
course, there was an explosion which soon settled the 
matter, and convinced Mr. David Craigie that he 
might go back to the little dull town of Perth, as 
soon as he pleased, without the little grass-widow. 
Now she was left in London sole mistress of her own 
fate. She had, besides the five thousand dollar check 
given her by her step-father, between five and six 
thousand dollars' worth of various kinds of jewelry, 
making her capital, all counted, about ten thousand dol- 
lars — a very considerable portion of which disappeared 
in less than one year, by a sort of insensible perspiration, 
which is a disease very common to the purses of ladies 
who have never been taught the value of money. She 
first went to reside with Fanny Kelly, a lady as 
worthy in the acts of her private life, as she was 
gifted in genius. The plan was to make an actress of 
her ; but deficient English was a bar to her immediate 
appearance, so it was settled that she should be a 
dansGuse. A Spanish teacher of that art was soon 



Autobiography. 4.1 

procured, with, whom she studied four months, and 
then, after a brief visit to the Montalvos in Spain, she 
came back to London, and made her debut at her 
Majesty's Theatre. 

When news of this event reached her mother she 
put on mourning as though her child was dead, and sent 
out to all her friends the customary funeral letters. 

The debut was a successful one, but the engage- 
ment was broken off immediately by a difficulty as to 
terms between her and the director, and though she 
was then entirely out of money she refused to go on 
for the terms offered. 

Through the management of influential friends an 
opening was made for her at the Eoyal Theatre at 
Dresden in Saxony, where she first met the celebrated 
pianist, Franz Liszt, who was then creating such a 
furore in Dresden, that when he dropped his pocket- 
handkerchief it was seized by the ladies and torn into 
rags, which, they divided among themselves — each 
being but too happy to get so much as a rag which 
had belonged to the great artist. 



42 Autobiography. 

The furore created by Lola Montez's? appearance at 
the theatre in Dresden was quite as great among the 
gentlemen as was Liszt's among the ladies. She was 
invited by the king and queen to visit them at their 
summer palace, and when she left, her Eoyal patroness, 
the queen, who was the sister to the King of Bavaria, 
gave her a letter to the Queen of Prussia, another sister 
to King Louis, which opened the way for an immense 
triumph at Berlin. The queen became her enthusias- 
tic patron, and often invited her to the Eoyal Palace ; 
and finally wound up her kind attentions by offering 
to make a match for her and settle her down in the 
stagnation of matrimony at her court. But Lola 
Montez was a giddy fool, intoxicated with her success 
as a danseuse^ and caring not a fig for all the wealth 
and position there was in the world. 

It was at this court that an incident occurred which 
caused not a little laughter at the time. The King 
Frederick William gave a grand reception to the Em- 
peror of Eussia, at which Lola Montez was invited to 
dance, and during the entertainment of the evening 



Autobiography. 43 

she became very tbirsty and askea for some water — 
and, on being told tbat it was then impossible for her 
to have any, as it was a rule of Court etiquette tbat no 
artists should eat or drink in the presence of Eoyalty, 
she began to storm not a little, and flatly declared that 
she would not go on with the dance, until she had 
some water. Duke Michael, brother of the Emperor 
Nicholas^ on hearing of the difl&culty, went to the king 
and told him that little Lola Montez declared she was 
dying of thirst and insisted that she would have some 
water. Whereupon the amiable king sent for a gob- 
let of water, and after putting it to his own lips, pre- 
sented it to her with his own hand, which brought 
the demand of Lola for something to drink within the 
rule of the etiquette of the court. 

Prince Schulkoski, to whom Lola Montez recently 
was almost married, was present on that occasion. 
It is one of the romances of life that after so many 
years he should, in this far-off Eepublican land, seek 
and obtain the promise of the hand of one who had 
seen enough of the vices of nobility to have reasona- 



44 Autobiography. 

bly disencliaiited lier of all its baubles of honor. But 
every woman bas a riglit to be a little foolish on that 
subject of marriage, and Lola Montez (I hope she will 
forgive me for telling family secrets) did engage her- 
self to marry the Prince Schulkoski ; but alas for the 
constancy, or inconstancy, of human love, while the 
noble Prince was furiously telegraphing kisses three 
times a day to his af5&anced bride, he was merrily 
travelling through the South with a celebrated singer, 
putting his own name and title in his pocket, and con- 
veniently assuming that of the Prima Donna, they 

booking themselves as plain Mr. and Mrs. at the 

hotels. This pleasant piece of news came squarely 
and undeniably to the knowledge of Lola Montez. 
I leave you, who have probably some general idea 
of Lola Montez, to judge of what followed. 

If the course of true-love never did run smooth, it 
is more than probable that it was not particularly so 
when the Prince returned from his musical journey to 
the South. 

But let us return to Berlin, where we left Lola and 



Autobiography. 45* 

tlie Prince. From Berlin Lola went to Warsaw, the 
capital of Poland, and it was in this city that her 
name first became involved in politics. The Prince 
Paskewich, Viceroy of Poland, an old man, fell 
most furiously and disgracefully in love with her. 
Old men are never very wise when in love, but the 
vice-king was especially foolish. Now the director 
of the theatre was also Colonel of the Gens-cCarmes — 
a disgraceful position of itself, and rendered pecu- 
liarly so by him, from his having been a complete 
spy for the Eussian government. Of course the 
Poles hated him. 

While Lola Montez was on a visit to Madame 
SteinkUler, the wife of the principal banker of 
Poland, the old viceroy sent to ask her presence at 
the palace one morning at eleven o'clock. She was 
assured by several ladies that it would neither be 
pohtic nor safe to refuse to go ; and she did go in 
Madame Steinkiller's carriage, and heard from the 
viceroy a most extraordinary proposition. Ha 

offered her the gift of a splendid country estate, 
4 



46 Autobiography. 

and would load her with diamonds besides. The 
poor old man was a comic sight to look upon — ^unu- 
sually short in stature, and every time he spoke he 
threw his head back and opened his mouth so wide 
as to expose the artificial gold roof of his palate. A 
death's-head making love to a lady could not have 
been a more disgusting or horrible sight. These 
generous gifts were most respectfully and very decid- 
edly dechned. But her refusal to make a bigger fool 
of one who was already fool enough, was not well 
received. 

In those countries where poHtical tyranny is unre- 
strained the social and domestic tyranny is scarcely 
less absolute. 

The next day his majesty's tool, the Colonel of the 
Gens'd'armes and the director of the theatre, called at 
her hotel to urge the suit of his master. 

He began by being persuasive and argumentative ; 
and when that availed nothing, he insinuated threats, 
when a grand row broke out, and the madcap ordered 
him out of her room. 



Autobiography. 47 

Now "wlieii Lola Montez appeared that niglit at the 
theatre, she was hissed by two or three parties who 
had evidently been instructed to do so by the director 
himself. The same thing occurred the next night; 
and when it came again on the third night, Lola 
Montez in a rage rushed down to the foot-lights and 
declared that those hisses had been set at her by the 
director, because she had refused certain gifts from the 
old prince his master. Then came a tremendous 
shower of applause from the audience ; and the old 
princess, who was present, both nodded her head and 
clapped her hands to the enraged and fiery little 
Lola. 

Here, then, was a pretty muss. An immense 
crowd of Poles, who hated both the prince and 
the director, escorted her to her lodgings. She 
found herself a hero without expecting it, and indeed 
without intending it. In a moment of rage she had 
told the whole truth, without stopping to count the 
cost, and she had unintentionally set the whole of 
Warsaw by the ears. 



48 Autobiography. 

The hatred which the Poles intensely felt towards 
the government and its agents found a convenient 
opportunity of demonstrating itself, and in less than 
twenty-four hours Warsaw was bubbling and raging 
with the signs of an incipient revolution. When 
Lola Montez was apprised of the fact that her arrest 
was ordered, she barricaded her door ; and when the 
police arrived, she sat behind it with a pistol in her 
hand, declaring that she would certainly shoot the 
first man dead who should break in. The police 
were frightened, or at least they could not agree 
among themselves who should be the martyr, and 
they went off to inform their masters what a tiger 
they had to confront, and to consult as to what 
should be done. In the meantime the French consul 
came forward and gallantly claimed Lola Montez as a 
French subject, which saved her from immediate 
arrest ; but the order was peremptory, that she must 
quit Warsaw. 

Her trunks were opened by the government, under 
pretence that she was suspected of carrying on a 



Autobiography. 4g 

secret correspondence "witli tlie enemies of tlie govern- 
ment. 

There was a letter of friendly introduction from 
the Queen of Prussia to the Empress of Eu.ssia which 
Lola snatched from the hand of the officer, tore 
into a thousand pieces, and threw them at his head. 
This act confirmed the worst of their suspicions, and 
everybody in Warsaw who took the part of Lola was 
suspected of being an enemy to the government. 
Over three hundred arrests were made, and among 
them her good friend Steinkiller, the banker. But 
in the midst of all the terrible excitement, the little 
dancing-girl, who had kicked up all the muss, slip- 
ped off to Eussia, where she had already been invited 
personally by the emperor himself, while at the court 
of his father-in-law, Frederick William of Prussia. 

Her arrival at the capital of Eussia, notwithstand- 
ing the terrible row in Warsaw, was welcomed with 
many peculiar and flattering attentions, of which it 
would look too much like vanity to speak in detail. 

The favors which she had received from the Queens 



50 Autobiography. 

of Saxony and Prussia, liad opened the way for the 
kindest reception, and for many dehcate attentions 
j&om the truly amiable and worthy Empress. And 
Nicholas, as well as the ministers of his court, besides 
their proverbial gallantry, appeared from the first 
anxious to test her skill and sagacity in the routine 
of secret diplomacy and politics. A humorous cir- 
cumstance happened one day while she and the 
Emperor and Count Benkendorf, Minister of the In- 
terior, were in a somewhat private chat about cer- 
tain vexatious matters connected with Caucasia. It 
was suddenly announced that the superior ofl&cers of 
the Caucasian army were without, desiring audience. 
The very subject of the previous conversation ren- 
dered it desirable that Lola Montez should not be 
seen in conference with the Emperor and the Minister 
of the Interior ; and so, to get her for the moment out 
of sight, she was thrust into a closet and the door 
locked. The conference between the officers and the 
Emperor was short but very stormy. Nicholas got 
into a towering rage. It seemed to the imprisoned 



Autobiography. 51 

Lola tliat tliere was a wMrlwind outside ; and a little 
bit of womanly cnriosity to bear wbat it was about, 
joined witb tbe great difficulty of keeping from 
congbing, made ber position a strangely embarrassing 
one. But tbe worst of it was, in tbe midst of tbe 
grand quarrel tbe parties all went out of tbe room, 
and forgot Lola Montez, wbo was locked up in tbe 
closet. For a wbole bour sbe was kept in tbis durance 
vile, reflecting upon tbe somewbat confined and 
cramping bonors sbe was receiving from tbe bands 
of royalty, wben tbe Emperor, wbo seems to bave 
come to bimself before Count Benkendorf did, came 
running back out of breatb and unlocked tbe door, 
and not only begged pardon for bis forgetfulness, in 
a manner wbicb only a man of bis accomplished ad- 
dress could do, but presented tbe victim witb a thou- 
sand roubles (seven hundred and fifty dollars), say- 
ing, laughingly, *^I bave made up my mind that 
whenever I imprison any of my subjects unjustly, I 
will pay them for their time and suffering." And 
liola Montez answered him, " Ah, sire, I am afraid 



$2 Autobiography. 

that that rule will make a poor man of yon." He 
laughed heartily, and replied, " Well, I am happy in 
being able to settle with you, any how." Nicholas 
was as amiable and accomplished in private life, as 
he was great, stern, and inflexible as a monarch. He 
was the strongest pattern of a monarch of this 
age, and I see no promise of his equal, either in the 
incumbents or the heir-apparents of the other thrones 
of Europe. 

I have now given as much of the history of Lola 
Montez up to the time when she went to Bavaria, as 
is necessary to understand what kind of an education 
and preparation she had for the varied, stormy, and in 
many respects the unhappy career she has led since 
that time. We have now followed this "eccentric 
woman," as the newspapers call her, through the calm 
and more peaceful portion of her life, and what is to 
come is all storm, excitement, unrest, and full of 
seeming contradiction, I know ; but there is, or there 
should be a key which, when it is possessed, explains 
the difficult volume of our natures, as well as there is 



Autobiography. 5*3 

to works of science and art. Don't misunderstand 
me — ^I am not promising in my next lecture to ex- 
plain that riddle, Lola Montez — ^that is a thing I have 
not guessed myself yet — ^but I shall faithfully go over 
this wild episode of life (horse-whippings and all) 
without the least disposition to shield my subject from 
the open eyes of the critical world. I am fortunate in 
this, at least, that the subject of my lecture has no- 
thing to lose by having the truth told about her. 
She can say with one of Lord Byron's heroes : — 

" Whatever betides I've known the worst 



Autobiography* 



Pari II. 



Autobiography. 

Part IL 



On the evening of tHe last lecture, we left Lola Mon- 
tez in St. Petersburg. She had then just imbibed a 
fondness for political matters — a thing that was nat vi- 
ral enough, for ever since she left London she had 
spent her time almost exclusively in diplomatic cir- 
cles, at the Courts of Saxony, Prussia, Poland, and 
St. Petersburg. With this fresh love of politics, she 
went to Paris, and immediately on arriving there she 
formed the acquaintance of the young and gifted 
Dujarrier, editor of La Presse, and a popular leader 
of the Eepublican party. He was a man of uncom- 
mon genius, and greatly loved and respected by all 

3* 



58 Autobiography. 

who knew Mm, except those who disagreed with 
him in politics, and who dreaded the scorching and 
terrible power of his pen. 

Dujarrier spent almost every hour he could spare 
from his editorial duties with Lola Montez, and in 
his society she rapidly ripened in politics, and be- 
came a good and confirmed hater of tyranny and 
oppression, in whatever shape it came. 

She soon became familiar with the state of politics 
throughout Europe, and became so enthusiastic a 
Eepublican, that she, in her heart, almost sickened 
that she tad not been made a man. But while she 
and Dujarrier were thus plotting and scheming poli- 
tics, they both fell in love, and were immediately 
pledged to each other in marriage. 

This was in autumn, and the following spring the 
marriage was to take place. It was arranged that 
Alexander Dumas, and the celebrated poet, Mery, 
should accompany them on their marriage tour 
through Spain. But alas, the inscrutable hand of 
Providence had ordered it otherwise ! Dujarrier was 



Autobiography. -- 59 

most wickedly murdered — ^for thougli lie fell in a 
duel, yet politics were at tlie bottom of it, and lie 
was drawn into it tbat be migbt be murdered, and 
put out of tbe way of a party wbicb dreaded bim, 
young as be was, more tban any otber man in 
France. On tbe morning of tbe duel, be wrote ber 
tbis affectionate note — 



"My dear Lola: I am going out to fight with pistols. 
This explains why I did not come to see you this morning. I 
have need of all my calmness. At two o'clock, all, all will be 
over. A thousand embraces, my dear Lola, my good Httle wife, 
whom I love so much, and the thoughts of whom will never 
leave me." 



Tbe duel was fougbt in tbe Bois de Boulogne, and 
Dujarrier was instantly killed by tbe cballenger, 
Beauvallon. After Lola Montez received Dujarrier's 
''note, sbe rusbed out and made every possible effort 
to find tbe parties, but it was too late. Sbe received 
tbe corpse jfrom tbe carriage, and made sucb prepa- 
rations, witb tbe belp of bis friends, for tbe funeral, 



6o Autobiography. 

as slie could, under tlie crusHng load of sorroTt and 
despair wHcli weighed upon her heart. 

On the morning of the duel, Dujarrier wrot;^ his 
will, leaving almost all his estate, amounting to oyer 
one hundred thousand dollars, to Lola. But she 
settled the estate, and gave every dollar of it to the 
relations of the deceased, and then quitted Puris to 
get rid of the sights that reminded her perpetually 
of the loss which could never be made up to her in 
this world. 

Beauvallon was arrested and tried for murder, and 
Lola Montez was summoned as a witness. The fol- 
lowing notice of her testimony appeared in the public 
press — "Mile, de Montez in her testimony spoke 
highly of the kind and amiable qualities of the 
deceased. She had expressed a desire to be intrO' 
duced to Beauvallon and to go to the dinner, but 
Dujarrier positively refused to allow it. She received 
the letter on her return from rehearsal, and immedi- 
ately took measures to prevent the duel, but it wag 
too late." ** I was," said she in her testimony, " a bet- 



Autobiography. 6i 

ter shot than Dujarrier, and if Beauvallon wanted 
satisfaction I would have fought him myself." 

She received the corpse from the carriage, and the 
emotion which she then experienced was still visible 
in her testimony. 

Dujarrier evidently entertained a warm affection for 
her, as, in addition to his farewell letter, he wrote a 
will, on the morning of the duel, leaving her the prin 
cipal part of the estate. 

The trial took place at Eouen, and among the wit- 
nesses was Alexander Dumas, who was a friend of 
Dujarrier. When Dumas was asked what his profes- 
sion was, he made this remarkable and characteristic 
reply — " I should call myself a dramatic poet, if I was 
not in the birth-place of Corneille." This answer 
touched the hearts of the audience, for Eouen was the 
birth-place of the two brothers Pierre and Thomas 
Corneille, and although two hundred years have 
elapsed since their birth, their memory is still honored 
by the inhabitants. 

I mav state that when Dumas learned that the duel 
5'' 



62 Autobiography. 

was to take place, lie sent Ms son to practise Duj airier 
at a shooting-gallery, where lie was able to hit a mark 
as large as a man only twice in fourteen times, while 
his antagonist was one of the best shots in Paris. 

At this time Lola Montez was full of health and 
life, and in no degree lacking of the courage to stand 
in the place of Dujarrier, and could she have done so 
Beauvallon might not have come oif so well as he did 
with his victim, who was entirely unskilled with the 
pistol. 

After this melancholy event, Lola Montez quitted 
Paris for Bavaria ; and it is a remarkable fact, that a 
somewhat extended history of her career in Bavaria 
appeared in the American Law Journal, in 1848, 
written, as I am informed by a distinguished editor 
of Philadelphia, by an eminent Chief Justice in this 
country. The article is on the trial of Beauvallon for 
the murder of Dujarrier, which developed some pecu- 
liarities of French criminal law ; and after this legal 
matter was disposed of, the author devoted several 
pages to the history of Lola Montez, after the death 



Autobiography. 63 

of Dujarrier, for tlie facts of wMch. he acknowledges 
his indebtedness to ^'Eraser's Magazine." As I 
intend to make one or two extracts from this 
eminent American authority, it is proper for me to 
remind you that the article was writteq in 1848, just 
after the events in Bavaria, and some three years 
before Lola Montez came to this country. The 
author says : 

" After leaving Paris, she next made lier appearance upon the 
theatre at Munich. Her association with the hterary and 
poHtical circles in which Dujarrier moved in Paris, had made 
her familiar with general literature, and with European politics 
in particular. The beauty and rare powers of mind which won 
the attachment of her talented protector in Paris, made a rapid 
conquest of the King of Bavaria. The masculine energy and 
courage which prompted the effort to save her friend by 
hastening to the duelling-ground, with the intention to stand in 
his place in the deadly conflict, enabled her to acquire an 
ascendency over the minds of others. The extent of her 
influence in Bavaria is shown by her success in driving the 
Jesuits from power, remodelling the cabinet of the king, and 
directing all the important measures of his administration." 

It is very fortunate for Lola Montez that she can 



64 Autobiography. 

appeal to sncli Mgli American as well as European 
authority in defence of lier deeds in. Bavaria; 
for the tools of the Jesuits in the United States 
have cunningly misrepresented, and, indeed, covered 
with most shamefal lies, this portion of her history. 
Before we can understand fully the nature of the 
part which Lola Montez performed in Bavaria, we 
must have a correct understanding of the character of 
King Louis, and of the political condition of Bavaria 
at the time of her arrival there. I am compelled to 
say that a portion of the press of the United States 
has exhibited an astonishing ignorance of the charac- 
ter of this king. They have represented him as a 
weak, foolish, and unprincipled man, who sought 
only his own pleasure, regardless of the good of his 
people and the honor of his crown — while he was 
precisely the reverse of all this. Not only was he 
one of the most learned, enlightened, and intellectual 
monarchs that Europe has had for a whole century, 
but he loved his people, and was, in the best politica] 
sense of it, a father to his country. During his reign 



Autobiography. b^ 

Municli was raised from a tMrd class to a first class 
capital in Europe. No monarcli of a whole century 
did so mncli for the cause of religion and human 
liberty as he. Look at those magnificent edifices 
built by him, which are the admiration of all Europe 
— ^the Saint Ludwig's church, the AUer Heiligen 
Chapel, the Theatiner Church, the Au Church, the 
New Palace, the Q-lyptothek, with its magnificent 
statues ; the Pinacothek, with its pictures ; the 
Odeon, the Public Library, the Uniyersity, the Cleri- 
cal School, the school for the female children of the 
nobihty; the Feldherrenhalle, filled with statues ; the 
Arch of Triumph, the Euhmshalle, the Bazaar, and 
the Valhalla. Nearly all these superb structures 
were erected, and the statues which they contained 
paid for with the king's own money. And besides 
these stupendous works of art, Louis set on foot the 
grandest works of internal improvement. The 
canal which unites the Main with the Danube, and 
which establishes an uninterrupted line of water com- 
munication from Eotterdam to the Black Sea, owe«i 



66 Autobiography. 

its origin to him. It was he who originated the plan 
for the National Eailways of Bavaria. He was also 
the originator of the company for running steamboats 
from the highest navigable point of the Dannbe 
above Donauwerth down to Eensbnrg. He gave his 
people the Landrath system, under which the actual 
cultivator of the soil is protected in comparative 
independence, while in other portions of Germany he 
is the trembling slave of despotism. 

When Louis ascended the throne he was possessed 
with the most liberal ideas, and it was his first inten 
tion to admit his people to a degree of political free 
dom which no people of Grermany had ever known. 
But the revolutionary movement of 1830 forced^ him 
backwards, and an evil hour brought into his coun- 
sels the most despotic and illiberal of the Jesuits. 
Through the influ.ence of this ministry the natural 
liberality of the King was perpetually thwarted, and 
the government had degenerated into a petty tyranny, 
where priestly influence was sucking out the life blood 
of the people. There was a rigid censorship upon 



Autobiography. 67 

tlie preBS, and the cloven foot of Jesuitism was every- 
where apparent, until the king had grown sick of 
the government which necessity seemed to force upon 
him. 

Such was the condition of things in Bavaria, when 
Lola Montez arrived there. And now, in this connex- 
ion, I hope I shall be pardoned for quoting once more 
the authority of the American Law Journal of 1848 : 
*' She obtained permission to dance upon the theatre 
at Munich. Her beauty and distinguished manners 
attracted the notice of the king. On further acquaint- 
ance with her, he became enamored of her originality 
of character, her mental powers, and of those bold and 
novel political views which she fearlessly and frankly 
laid before him. Under her counsels, a total revolu- 
tion afterwards took place in the Bavarian system of 
government. The existing ministry were dismissed ; 
new and more liberal advisers were chosen; the 
power of the Jesuits was ended ; Austrian influences 
repelled, and a foundation laid for making Bavaria an 
independent member of the great family of nations." 



68 Autobiography. 

These favorable results may fairly be attributed to the 
talents, the energy, and the influence of Lola Monte25, 
who received, in her promotion to the nobility, only 
the usual reward of political services. She became 
Countess of Landsfeld, accompanied by an estate of 
the same name, with certain feudal privileges and 
. rights over some two thousand souls. Her income, 
including a recent addition from the king of 20,000 
florins per annum, was 70,000 florins, or little more 
than £5,000 per annum. After all the noise there 
has been in the world about Lola Montez in Bavaria, 
she may challenge history to produce an instance 
where power in the hands of a woman was used with 
greater propriety of deportment, and with more unsel- 
fish devotion to the cause of human freedom. She, 
and she alone, induced the king, not only to abolish 
a ministry which had stood for a quarter of a century, 
but she went further, and induced him to form his new 
ministry from the ranks of the people, without respect 
to the rank of nobility. What an immense step was 
such an example as that to be set in a German state ! 



Autobiography. 69 

And you, in your peaceful republican borne, bere in 
tbe United States, can form no conception of tbe 
furious rage it set tbe nobility in, not only in Bava 
ria, but all over Germany. It was at tbat moment 
tbat Lola Montez became a fiend, a devil, a sbe-dragon, 
witb more beads and borns tban tbat frigbtfal beast 
spoken of in Eevelation. 

Wben Lola Montez arrived in Bavaria tbe nobility 
bad sucb power tbat a tradesman could not possibly 
collect a debt of one of tbem by law, as tbey could 
only be tried by tbeir peers. And tbe poor people, 
alas ! bad no cbance wben tbey came under tbe ban 
of tbe laws, for tbe nobility were alone tbeir judges. 
To remedy tbis enormity Lola Montez bad obtained 
tbe pledges of tbe king tbat be would introduce tbe 
Code Napoleon, and sbe was baving it copied and put 
in due form wben tbe revolution broke out and drove 
ber from power. Tbe blow tbat sbe bad dealt at tbe 
swollen beads of tbe patent nobility was severe 
enougb, in cboosing ministers from tbe ranks of tbe 
people, but tbis introduction of tbe Code Napoleon 



yo Autobiography. 

was looked upon as the finishing blow. The fat and 
idle vagabonds who lived off the people's earnings 
saw the last plank drifting from their hands. And 
Lola Montez was the devil of it all. The priests used 
to preach that there was no longer a Yirgin Mary in 
Munich, but that Yenus had taken her place. At 
first they tried to win her to their side. A nobleman 
was found who would immolate himself in marriage 
with her ; then Austrian gold was tried — old Metter- 
nich would give her a million if she would quit 
Bavaria — all, all was offered to no purpose. Then 
came threats and the plots for her destruction. She 
was twice shot at, and once poisoned — and it was only 
the accident of too large a dose that saved her. In 
their determination to be doubly sure they defeated 
themselves. And when the revolution broke out 
which drove Lola Montez from power, it was not by 
the superior tact and sagacity of her enemies, but it 
was by the brute force produced by Austrian gold. 
Gold was sowed in the streets of Munich, and the 
rabble — by which I mean not the people — ^but the 



Autobiography. 71 

baser sort of idlers and mercenary hirelings, became 
the tools of the Austrian party. 

They came with cannon, and guns, and swords, 
with the voice of ten thousand devils, and surround- 
ed her little castle. Against the entreaties of her 
friends, who were with her, she presented herselt 
before the infuriated mob which demanded her life. 
This for the moment had the effect of paralysing 
them, as it must have seemed like an act of insanity. 
And it was a little " scary," as the old man said of 
his unmanageable horse. A thousand guns were 
pointed at her, and a hundred fat and apoplectic 
voices fiercely demanded that she should cause the 
repeal of what she had done. In a language of great 
mildness — ^for it was no time to scold — she replied 
that it was impossible for her to accede to such a 
request. What had been done was honestly meant 
for the good of the people, and for the honor of 
Bavaria. 

They could take her life if they would, but that 
would never mend their cause, for her blood would 



72 Autobiography. 

never prove that they were in the right. In the 
midst of this speech she was dragged back within 
the house, by her friends; and soon after, on per- 
ceiving that preparations were making to burn it 
down, she yielded to the persuasion and entreaties or 
her friends, and made her escape disguised as a 
peasant girl — she retreated, on foot, through the 
snow (for it was February), about seven miles into 
the country. The leaders of the Liberal party were 
obliged also to escape into the country, with their 
families. 

Lola Montez was now hopelessly banished from 
Bavaria, and there was no alternative left but to 
make immediate retreat within the shelter of some 
friendly state. That state was Switzerland, that 
little Eepublic that lies there, like a majestic eagle, 
in the midst of the monarchical vultures and cor- 
morants of Europe. But, before Lola Montez quitted 
Bavaria for ever, she went back, disguised in boy's 
clothes — riding nights, and prudently lying still by 
day — and at twelve o'clock at night, she obtained a 



Autobiography. 73 

last audience with the king. She gained from the 
king a promise that he would abdicate — she could 
not endure the thought that he should, with his own 
hand, destroy the reforms which he had made at her 
instigation. She pointed out to him the impossibility 
of holding his throne, unless he went down into the 
disgraceful humility of recanting the great deeds 
which he had proclaimed he had done under a sense 
of immediate justice. She convinced him that it 
would be. best for his own fame that the backward 
step should be taken by his son, who was an enemy 
of the Liberal party, and who in a short time, at 
farthest, must ascend the throne. Louis readily saw 
the propriety of this advice, and he faithfully kept 
the promise which he then made, to abdicate. And 
Lola Montez, under the stars of a midnight sky, 
went out in her boy's disguise, to look upon the 
turrets and spires^of Munich for the last time. She 
knew that if she were discovered she would be igno- 
miniously shot — ^but she did not think or care much 
about that. Her thoughts were on the past. And 



74 Autobiography. 

they have never been able to look much to a fiitare, 
in this world at least. 

Ten years have elapsed since the events with which 
Lola Montez was connected in Bavaria, and yet the 
malice of the diffusive and ever vigilant Jesuits is as 
fresh and as active as it was the first hour it assailed 
her. For it is not too much for her to say, that few 
artists, of her profession, ever escaped with so little 
censure ; and certainly none ever had the doors of 
the highest social respectability so universally open 
to her, as she had up to the time she went to Bavaria. 
And she denies that there was anything in her con- 
duct there which ought to have compromised her 
before the world. Her enemies assailed her, not be- 
cause her deeds were bad, but because they knew of 
no other means to destroy her influence. On this 
point I must quote again the authority of the Ame- 
rican Law Journal. Speaking of the king's confi- 
dence in Lola Montez, it says : 

" This attachment enabled her to work out the great political 
changes which have taken place in Bavaria ; and it is but just 



Autobiography. 75 

to acknowledge that it is the political use she has made of her 
relations with the king, and not the immorality of the con- 
nexion itself, that has brought down upon her most of the 
vehement censures which the defeated party have from time to 
time bestowed, accompanied by the bitterest calumnies. Tlie 
moral indignation which her opponents displayed was, unfor- 
tunately, a mere sham. They have not only tolerated, but 
patronized, a female who formerly held a most equivocal posi- 
tion with the king, because she made herself subservient to the 
then dominant party. Let Lola Montez have credit for her 
talents, her inteUigence, and her support of popular rights. As 
a poHtical character, she held, until her retirement from Switzer- 
land, an important position in Bavaria and Germany, besides 
having agents and correspondents in various parts of Europe. 
On foreign politics she has clear ideas, and has been treated by 
the political men of the country as a substantive power. She 
always kept state secrets, and could be consulted in safety in 
cases in which her original habits of thought rendered her of 
service. Acting under her advice, the king had pledged him- 
self to a course of steady improvement in the political freedom 
of the people. Although she wielded so much power, it is 
alleged that she never used it for the promotion of unworthy 
persons, or, as other favorites have done, for corrupt purposes; 
and there is reason to believe that poUtical feehng influenced 
her course, not sordid considerations." 

To the above statement of the American Law 



76 Autobiography. 

Jonrnal, I will add that Lola Montez could then 
easily liaye been tbe ricbest woman tbat ever lived, 
had she preferred her own advantage to the success of 
political freedom. She willingly sacrificed herself for 
a principle, and lost, alas ! that. 

Her last hope for Bavaria being broken, she turned 
her attention towards Switzerland, as the nearest 
shelter from the storm that was beating above her 
head. She had influenced the King of Bavaria to 
withhold his assent to a proposition from Austria, 
which had for its object the destruction of that little 
Eepublic of Switzerland. If Eepublics are ungratefal, 
Switzerland certainly was not so to Lola Montez ; for 
it received her with open arms, made her its guest, 
and generously offered to bestow upon her an establish- 
ment for life. It was a great mistake that she refused 
that offer, for had she remained in Switzerland, she 
could have preserved that potential power among 
those scheming nations, spoken of in the above quo- 
tation from the American Journal, and might have 
still farther chastised the Jesuit party in Germany. 



Autobiography. 77 

But she allowed this brilliant opportunity to pass, 
and went to London to enter upon another marriage 
experiment, of which nothing but sorrow and mortifi- 
cation came. The time which she afterwards lived in 
Paris was, however, pleasantly and comfortably spent. 
Her house was the resort of the most gifted literary 
geniuses of Paris, and there she had the honor and 
happiness of entertaining many literary gentlemen 
from America, who were temporarily sojourning in 
the French capital. 

The next step of any public note taken by Lola 

Montez was her passage to America, coming out in 

the same ship with Kossuth. Shattered in fortune, 

and broken in health, she came with curiosity and 

reviving hope, to the shores of the New World ; this 

stupendous asylum of the world's unfortunate, and 

last refuge of the victims of the tyranny and 

wrongs of the Old World! God grant that it may 

ever stand as it is now, the noblest column of liberty 

that was ever reared beneath the arch of heaven ! 

Of Lola Montez' career in the United States there 
6 



78 Autobiography. 

is not mucli to be said. On arriving in this country 
she found that the same terrible power which had 
pursued her in Europe, after the blows she had given 
it in Germany, held even here the means to fill the 
American press with a thousand anecdotes and rumors 
which were entirely unjust and false in relation to her. 
Among other things, she had had the honor of horse- 
whipping hundreds of men whom she never knew, 
and never saw. But there is one comfort in all these 
falsehoods, which is, that these men very likely would 
have deserved horsewhipping, if she had only known 
them. As a specimen of the pleasant things said 
of Lola Montez, I am going to quote you from a 
book, entitled the " Adventures of Mrs. Seacole," pub- 
lished last year in London, and edited by no less of a 
literary man than the gifted correspondent of the 
London Times^ W. H. Eussell, Esq. Mrs. Seacole is 
giving her adventures at Cruces, between here and 
California. She says : — " Occasionally, some distin- 
guished passengers passed on the upward and down- 
ward tides of rascality and ruffianism, that swept 



Autobiography. 79 

periodically througli Oruces. Came one day, Lola 
Montez, in tlie fall zenith of her evil fame, bound for 
California, with a strange snite. A good-looking, bold 
woman, with fine, bad eyes, and a determined bearing, 
dressed ostentatiously in perfect male attire, with shirt- 
collar turned down over a velvet lappelled coat, 
richly worked shirt-front, black hat, French un- 
mentionables, and natty pohshed boots with spurs. 
She carried in her hand a handsome riding-whip, 
which she could use as well in the streets of Cruces as 
in the towns of Europe ; for an impertinent American, 
presuming, perhaps not unnaturally, upon her re- 
putation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her long 
coat, and, as a lesson, received a cut across his 
face that must have marked him for some days. I 
did not wait to see the row that followed, and was 
glad when the wretched woman rode off on the 
following morning." 

Now, there are several rather comical mistakes in 
this complimentary notice. 

1st. Lola Montez was never dressed off the stage 

4* 



8o Autobiography. 

in man's apparel in her whole life, except when she 
went back disguised to Bavaria. 

2nd. Therefore no man could have pulled the tails 
of her coat at Cruces. 

3rd. She never had a whip in her hand m Cruces, 
and could not, therefore, have whipped the American 
as described. 

4th. She never was in Cruces in her life. Before 
she went to California the ney route was opened, and 
she passed many miles from, .that place. 

5th. The whole story is." a base fabrication from 
beginning to end. It is ^s false as Mrs. Seacole's 
own name. Another funny thing is, that Mrs. 
Seacole makes this interesting event occur in 1851, 
whereas Lola Montez did not go to California till 
1853. 

If I were to collect all similar falsehoods which I 
have seen in papers or books about Lola Montez, they 
would form a mountain higher than Chimborazo. 

But no matter for these. Since Lola Montez com- 
menced her lectures, she has experienced nothing but 



Autobiography. 81 

kindness at the hands of the entire respectable press 
of the country. And for this she will carry in her 
heart a grateful remembrance, when she is back again 
amidst the scenes of the Old World. And, indeed, 
as for that, she will carry a whole new world back 
with her ; for her heart and brain are full of the stu- 
pendous strides which freedom has made in this mag- 
nificent country. Those of you who have not had 
some taste of the quality of government in the Old 
World, can but half relish your own glorious institu- 
tions. The pilgrim from the effete forms of Europe, 
must look upon your great Eepublic with as happy 
an eye as the storm-tossed and ship-wrecked mariner 
looks upon the first star that shines beneath the reced- 
ing tempest. And now suffer me to close my lecture 
here with the last words of Childe Harold's Pilgri- 



mage 



" Farewell I a word that must be, and hath been- 
A sound which makes us linger ; yet farewell I 
Ye ! who have traced the pilgrim to the scene 
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell 



82 Autobiography. 

A thought which once was his, if on ye swell 

A single recollection, not in vain 

He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell ; 

Pare well I with him alone may rest the pain, 

If such there were — ^with you the moral of his strain^ 



Beautiful Women 



Beautiful Women. 



The last and most difficult office imposed on Psyche 
was to descend to the lower regions and bring back 
a portion of Proserpine's beauty in a box. The too 
inquisitive goddess, impelled by curiosity or perhaps 
by a desire to add to her own charms, raised the lid, 
and behold, there issued forth — a vapor ! which was 
all there was of that wondrous beauty. 

In attempting to give a definition of beauty, I 
have painfully felt the force of this classic parable. 
If I settle upon a standard of beauty in Paris, I find 
it will not do when I get to Constantinople. Per- 
sonal qualities the most opposite imaginable are each 
looked upon as beautiful in different countri;^ and 
even by different people of the same country. That 



86 Beautiful Women. 

wHcli is deformity at New York may be beauty at 
Pekin. The poet Cowley says — 

" Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape, 
Who dost in every country change thy shape, 
Here black, there brown, here tawny, and there white." 

At one place tke sigking lover sees '' Helen" in an 
Egyptian brow. In China, black teeth, painted eye- 
lids, and plucked eyebrows are beautiful ; and should 
a woman's feet be large enough to walk upon, their 
owners are looked upon as monsters of ugliness. 

The Liliputian dame is the heau ideal of beauty in 
the eyes of a Northern gallant ; while in Patagonia 
they have a most Polyphemus standard of beauty. I 
have read of nations where a man makes no preten- 
sions to being well favored without five or six scars 
in his face. And this, which was probably a mere 
accident connected with valor, grew at last to have so 
entire a share in the idea of beauty, that it became a 
custom to slash the faces of infants. 

Said Voltaire, "Ask a toad what is beauty, the 
supremely beautiful, the to kalon, he will answer you 



Beautiful Women. 87 

that it is his female, with two large round eyes pro- 
jecting out of its little head, a broad, flat neck, 
yellow breast, and dark brown back!" Ask a 
Guinea negro the same question, and he will point 
you to a greasy black skin, hollow eyes, thick 
lips, and a flat nose, with perhaps an ingot of gold 
in it. 

With the modern Greeks and other nations on the 
shores of the Mediterranean, corpulency is the perfec- 
tion of form in a woman ; the very attributes which 
disgust the western European, form the highest 
attractions of an Oriental fair. It was from the com- 
mon and admired shape of his countrywomen, that 
Eubens, in his pictures, delights in a vulgar and 
almost odious plumpness. He seems to have no idea 
of beauty under two hundred pounds. His very 
Graces are all fat. 

Hair is a beautiful ornament of woman, but it has 
always been a disputed point as to what color it 
shall be. I believe that most people now-a-days look 
upon a red head with disfavor — ^but in the times of 



88 Beautiful Women. 

Queen Elizabeth, it was in fashion. Mary of Scot- 
land, though she had exquisite hair of her own, wore 
red fronts out of compliment to fashion and the red- 
headed Queen of England. 

That famous beauty, Cleopatra, was red-haired 
also ; and the Venetian ladies to this day cou.nterfeit 
yellow hair. 

Yellow hair has a higher authority still. The 
Okder of the Goldei^ Fleece, instituted by 
Philip, Duke of Burgundy, was in honor of a frail 
beauty whose hair was yellow. 

So, ladies and gentlemen, this thing of beauty 
which I come to talk about, has a somewhat migra- 
tory and fickle standard of its own. All the lovers 
of the world will have their own idea of the thing in 
spite of me. 

A lover of Gongora, for instance, sighs for lips an 
inch thick : while a Chinese lover is mad in praise of 
lips so thin, that they are no lips at all. In Cir- 
cassia, a straight nose is the only nose of beauty — ■ 
cross but a mountain which separates it from 



Beautiful Women. 89 

Tartary, and there flat noses, tawny skins, and eyes 
three inches asunder, are all the fashion. 

But I must stop this, lest I unsettle the faith of 
many a fair lady in the only good which her soul 
hankers after, and sweep away the airy foundations 
on which so many millions of lovers are rapturously 
reposing. I suspect they would not thank me for 
that. I can remember, when I was younger than I 
am now, with what sullen, pouting kind of surprise 
I read out of Mr. Hume's Essays, that "there is 
nothing in itself beautiful or deformed, desirable or 
hateful; but these attributes arise from the pecu- 
liar constitution and fabric of human sentiment and 
affection." 

My experience has since led me to a personal 
knowledge of the various types of beauty in all 
quarters of the world ; and though I am not pre- 
pared to argue the truth of Mr. Hume's proposition 
in its full extent, yet I am free to confess that I find 
the greatest difficulty in sketching in my own mind the 
details of any infallible standard of a beautiful woman. 



go Beautiful Women. 

Canova was obliged to have sixty different women 
sit for Ms Venns ; and how shall we dare point to 
any one woman, and say that she is perfectly beau 
tiful ? When Zeuxis drew his famous picture of Helen, 
he modelled his portrait from the separate charms 
of five different virgins. 

But though there is this difficulty in settling upon 
a perfect standard of female beauty, there can be no 
doubt about its power over the customs and institu- 
tions of mankind. The beauty of woman has settled 
and unsettled the affairs of empires and the fate of 
republics, when diplomacy and the sword have proved 
futile. "Certainly," observes Lucian, "more women 
have obtained honor for their beauty than for all other 
virtues besides." And Tasso has said that " beauty 
and grace are the power and arms of a vfoman," 
while Ariosto declares that, after every other gift of 
arms had been exhausted on man, there remained for 
woman only beauty — ^the most victorious of the whole. 
There is a great and terrible testimony of the power 
of female beauty in the history which Homer gives us 



Beautiful Women. 91 

of Helen. When she shows herself on the ramparts 
of Troy even the aged Priam forgets his miseries and 
the wrongs of his people, in rapture at her charms. 

And afterwards, when Menelans came, armed with 
rage and fury, to revenge himself on the lovely but 
guilty cause of so much bloodshed, his weapon fell in 
her presence, and his arm grew nerveless. 

" Heavens I that a face should thus bewitch his soul, 
And win aU that's great and godlike in it." 

And so another poet has sung : 

" Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, 
And beauty draws us by a single hair." 

^ But where are we to detect this especial source of 
power ? Often forsooth in. a dimple, sometimes beneath 
the shade of an eyelid, or perhaps among the tresses 
of a little fantastic curl ! 

Alas I I am ashamed to think what small things will 
often move the strongest and bravest of men. Many 
times in my life, in the company of kings and nobles, 



92 Beautiful Women. 

have I been forced to reflect upon tlie following words 
of the sublime Milton : — 

" For what admir'st thou ? what transports thee so : 
An outside ? Fair, no doubt, and worthy well 
Thy cherishing, thy honoring and thy love, — 
Not thy subjection I" 

I once knew a nobleman wbo used to try to make 
himself wise, and to emancipate his heart from its 
thraldom to a celebrated beauty of the court, by con- 
tinually repeating to himself, — " but it is short lived," 
— " it won't last,"—" it won't last." 

Ah, me! that is too true — ^it won't last. Beauty 
has its date, and it is the penalty of nature that girls 
must fade and become wizened as their grandmothers 
have done before them. 

The old abbey and the aged oak are more venera- 
ble in their decay ; and many are the charms around 
us, both of art and nature, that may still linger 
and please. The breaking wave is most graceful at 
the moment of its dissolution ; the sun when setting 
is still glorious and beautiful, and though the longest 



Beautiful Women. 93 

day must have its evening, yet is the evening as beau- 
tiful as the morning — ^the light deserts us, but it is to 
visit us again ; the rose retains after charms for the 
sense, and though it fall into decay, it renews its glo- 
ries at the approach of another spring. 

But for woman there is no second May ! To each 
belongs her little day, and Time, that gives new white- 
ness to the swan, gives it not unto woman! The 
winner of a hundred hearts, in the very bu.d of her 
beauty, in the morn and liquid dews of youth even, 
cannot obtain a patent for her charms. " They all do 
fade as the leaf." While the fair lady curls her hair, 
is it. not imperceptibly growing grey? 

To borrow an Arabian proverb, let her " be light as 
the full moon," yet when her eye is fullest of light, it 
is nearest the point where it begins to fade. The fuller 
the rose is blown, the sooner it is shed. When the 
peach is ripest — what next ? 

Let her head be from Greece, her bust from Aus- 
tria, her feet from Hindostan, her shoulders from Italy, 

and her hands and complexion from England — ^let her 

7 



94 Beautiful Women. 

haye tlie gait of a Spaniard, and the Venetian tire- 
let her, indeed, be another Helen, and have a box of 
beauty to repair her charms withal— yet must she 
travel the s(\me road where all the withered leaves do 
He! 

But this won't do. In vain shall I try to preach 
beauty down. The world has had the sage reflection, 
and the warning, of the pulpits on this subject, for I 
know not how many thousands of years, and yet not 
a feather has been plucked from this bird of beauty, 
nor an ounce of its potent sway destroyed. 

So, without further philosophizing, we may set our- 
selves fairly to the business of this lecture, which is to 
discuss the beauty of woman, together with the means 
of its development and preservation. 

I am impressed that some sketch of my own obser- 
vations of the national types of beau.tiful women will 
be more interesting to you than any speculation, or 
theory on the subject, abstractly considered. It is not 
so interesting to listen to a theory of beautiful women, 
as to look at a beautiful woman. 



Beautiful Women. 95 

As a general thing you have to look into tlie ranks 
of tlie nobility for the most beautiful women of 
Europe. And on the whole I must give the pre- 
ference to the English nobility for the most beautiful 
women I have met with. 

In calling to my mind the many I have seen, in the 
course of my life, I find myself at once thinking of 
the Duchess of Sutherland. She was a large and 
magnificent woman — a natural queen. Her com- 
plexion was light, and she might be considered the 
paragon and type of the beautiful aristocracy of Eng- 
land. I next think of Lady Blessington. She was 
a marvellous beauty. Kings and Nobles were at 
her feet. In Italy they called her the goddess. She 
was very voluptuous, with a neck that sat on her 
shoulders like the most charming Greek models, a 
wonderfully beautiful hand, and an eye that when it 
smiled, captivated all hearts. She was a far more 
intellectual type of beauty than the Duchess of 
Sutherland. 

The present Duchess of Wellington is a remarka* 



96 Beautiful Women. 

bly beautiful woman — ^but witli little intellect or ani» 
mation. She is a fine piece of sculpture, and as cold 
as a piece of sculpture. Tlie most famously beautiful 
family in England is tbe great Sheridan family. 
There were two sons who were considered the hand- 
somest men of their day. Then there are three 
daughters, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, well known on this 
side of the Atlantic through her poverty and her mis- 
fortunes! Lady Blackwood, and Lady Seymour, 
who was the queen of beauty at the famous Eglinton 
Tournament. These three beautiful Sheridan sisters 
used to be called "the three Graces of England.'' 
Lady Seymour has dark blue eyes, large, lustrous, 
and most beautiful ; while Lady Blackwood and 
Mrs. Norton have grey eyes, but full of fire, and soul, 
and beauty. 

The women of France are not generally beautiful, 
although they are very charming. The art of pleas- 
ing, or of refined and fascinating manners, is the first 
study of a French lady. But still France is not with- 
out its beautiful women. The Marquise de la Grange 



Beautiful Women. 97 

was one of tlie most beautiful women I have met in 
Paris. She had an antique head and face, grave and 
dignified in her manners as Juno, and was altogether^- 
a grand study for an artist. 

Eagenia, the Empress, is, however, handsomer still. 
When I last saw her she was certainly one of the 
iQ:iost vivacious, witty, and sprightly women in Pari^. 
All the portraits of her which I have seen in this 
country greatly exaggerate her size, for Eugenia is 
really a small woman. Before her marriage with the 
Emperor, and when she was the belle of Madrid, she 
evinced a great admiration for the celebrated pianist 
Lci-is Gotschalk, who has, I believe, carried off the 
hearts of half a million of girls in this country, without, 
poor fellow, being in the slightest degree cognizant 
of the fact himself. Eugenia caused him to be received 
into the best and most aristocratic families of Madrid. 

The ladies of the Eoyal family of Eussia are among 

the most beautiful women of Europe. The Grand 

Duchess Olga, eldest daughter of the late Emperor 

Nicholas, was so beautiful that even when she appeared 

5 



98 Beautiful Women. 

in public tlie -whole audience would rise up and 
receive her with, shouts of applause. Her younger 
sister Marie, wife of the Duke of Leuchtenburg, was 
only less beautiful. 

In Turkey I saw very few beautiful women. The 
style of beauty there is universally fat. Their crite- 
rion of a beautiful woman is that she ought to be a 
load for a camel. They are, however, quite handsome 
when young, but the habit of feeding them on such 
things as pounded rose leaves and butter, to make 
them plump, soon destroys it. The lords of creation 
in that part of the world treat women as you would 
geese — ^stuff them to make them fat. \ 

Through the politeness of Sir Stratford Canning, 
Enghsh Ambassador at Constantinople, who gave me 
a letter to a Greek lady residing in the Sultan's harem, 
I was kindly permitted to visit, as frequently as I 
pleased, the inside of that institution, and look upon 
what they call in Turkey *^the lights of the world." 
These "lights of the world " consisted of some five 
hundred bodies of unwieldy fatness. 



Beautiful Women. 99 

Your American Plato, Mr. Ealpb. Emerson, would 
have exclaimed on seeing sucli a sight, — "What quan- 
tity I" With the j^ception of a few very young girls, 
there was not a beautiful woman in the whole vast 
accumulation of pounded rose-leaves and butter. The 
ladies of the harem gazed at my leanness with com- 
miserating wonder ; and every one wanted to remedy 
the horrible deformity. They paid many civil com- 
pliments to my face and foot — ^but were positively dis- 
gusted at my diminutive size. The ladies of Turkey 
are allowed very little exercise lest they should get 
thin. 

The Circassians and Georgians are the most beauti- 
ful of the Eastern women. 

The East Indian women are very beautiful from 
eleven to fifteen, but the flower soon withers, and at 
twenty they are old and wan. They eat and 
smoke a composition made of pounded tobacco and 
opium, called bhang, which is a great destroyer of 
beauty. 

Italy has a type of female beauty which is marked 



lOO Beautiful Women. 

and cliaracteristic — dark, fiery, and briglit as tlie sky 
that bends above them. A true Italian woman is all 
life, movement, gesticulation, and love. There is no 
life for a woman in Italy without plenty of love and 
intrigue. When old age has put out the fires of youth, 
they form Platonic love-affairs, and contrive, as they 
can, to go over a semblance of the old rounds of intri- 
gue. But the women of Italy have this excuse, that 
their own husbands pay them very slight attentions^ 
and the consequ.ence is that the wife must look 
abroad for what satisfies her heart. Indeed I am 
inclined to believe that this remark holds pretty true 
in relation to more countries than Italy. As a general 
thing, husbands may thank themselves if their wives' 
affections wander away from home. Fontenelle 
defines woman " a creature that loves." And if no 
violence, or neglect, or injustice, is done to her heart, 
she naturally clings to the object that first awakened 
the latent fires of her affections. It is a law of her 
moral being to do so. ./It is as natural f3r her to keep 
on loving that object, as it is for the flowers to give 



Beautiful Women. loi 

back tlieir odors to the sun and air. Not far from 
tMs philosopliical point lies a miglity lesson for hus- 
bands. Gentlemen, if yon please, if you would have 
your homes hold no heart but yours, see to it that 
your own hearts are always found at home. 

The women of Italy have mostly dark eyes and 
dark hair. But a blonde is regarded as a miracle of 
beauty. Of such a type was the Countess Guiccioli, 
the mistress of Lord Byron. 

The Spanish women are many of them very beau- 
tiful. But there are two distinct and very different 
types of beauty in Spain. In the North they are fair 
and blond. In the South they are mixed with Moor- 
ish blood, and are dark, have dark hair, with light 
eyes. The aristocratic Spaniards are generally fair- 
haired. 

In Germany I have seen some very beautifiil 
blond women, who looked as fair and as clear as 
snow-flakes. I should say that the beautiful women 
of Germany are a type between the English and 
French. Indeed the German women are a remarka* 



102 Beautiful Women. 

ble type of handsome fine-looking women, and are the 
very beau-ideal of the Teutonic race. 

If we go back to the beginning of taste and fashion, 
we shall find that, for many an age, the twisted foliage 
of trees, and the skins of beasts, were the only gar- 
ments which clothed the human race. Decoration 
was unknown, excepting the wild flower, plucked from 
the shrub, the shell from the beach, or the berry off 
the tree. Nature had few sophistications. The lover 
looked for no other attraction in his bride than the 
peach-bloom of her cheek — ^the downcast softness of 
her eye. In after times when avarice ploughed the 
world, or ambition bestrode it, the various products 
of the loom and the Tyrian mystery of dyes, all united 
to give embellishment to beauty, and attraction to 
woman's mien. But even at that period, when the 
east and south laid their decorating riches at the feet 
of woman, we see by the sculptures yet remaining, that 
the dames of Greece — ^the then exemplars of the 
world, were true to the simple laws of nature. 

The amply-folding robe cast round the form ; the 



Beautiful Women. IC- , 

modest clasp and zone on the bosom; the braided 
hair or the veiled head — these were the fashions alike of 
the wife of a Phocion-and the mistress of an Alcibiades. 

A chastened taste ruled at woman's toilet. And 
from that hour to this, the forms and modes of Greece 
have been the models of the poet, the sculptor, and 
the painter. 

Eome, queen of the world, the proud dictatress to 
the Athenian and Spartan dames, disdained not to 
array herself in their dignified attire. And the 
statues of her virgins, her matrons, and her empresses, 
in every portico of her ancient streets, show the grace- 
ful fashion of her Grecian provinces. 

It was the irruption of the Goths and Yandals which 
made it necessary for woman to assume a more repul- 
sive garb. 

The flowing robe, the easy shape, the soft, imfet- 
tered hair, gave place to skirts shortened for flight or 
contest — ^to the hardened vest, and head buckled in 
gold or silver. 

Thence, by a natural descent, came the iron bodice, the 



104 Beautiful Women. 

stiff fartMngale, and spiral coiffure of tte middle age& 
The courts of Charlemagne, of the English Edwards 
Henries, and Elizabeth, all exhibit the figures of 
women in a state of siege — such lines of circumyalla- 
tion and out- works — such bulwarks of whalebone, 
wood, and steel — such impassable masses of gold, sil- 
ver, silk, and furbelows met a man's view, that before 
he had time to guess it was a woman that he saw, she 
had passed from his sight ; and he only formed a vague 
wish on the subject, by hearing from an interested fa- 
ther or brother that the moving castle was a woman. 
These preposterous fashions disappeared in England 
a short time after the Eestoration. They had been a 
little on the wane during the more classic reign of 
Charles I., and what the pencil of Vandyke shows us, 
in the graceful dress of the Lady Carlisle and Sacha- 
rissa, was rendered yet more correspondent to the soft 
undulations of nature in the garments of the lovely 
but frail beanties of the second Charles's court. But 
as change too often is carried to extremes, in this case 
the unzoned taste of the ladies thought no freedom too 



Beautiful Women. 105 

free, and their vestments were gradually unloosed of 
tlie brace, until another touch, would have exposed 
the wearer to no thicker covering than the ambient 
air. 

The matron reign of Anne, in some measure, 
corrected this. But it was not till the accession 
of the House of Brunswick that it was finally 
exploded, and gave way, by degrees, to the ancient 
mode of female fortification, by introducing the Pari- 
sian fashion of hoops, buckram stays, waists to the 
hips, and below them, screwed to the circumference of 
a wasp, brocaded silk stiff with gold, shoes with heels 
so high as to set the wearer on her toes, and heads, for 
quantity of false hair and height, to out-weigh and 
perhaps out-reach the tower of Babel. 

When the arts of sculpture and painting, in their 
fine specimens from the chisels of Greece and the pen- 
cils of Italy, began to be again studied, taste began 
again to mould the dress of the female youth, after 
their laost graceful fashion. 

The health-destroying bodice was laid aside; the 



io6 Beautiful Women. 

brocades and whalebone disappeared, and tbe easy 
shape and flowing drapery again assumed tlie rights 
of nature and of grace. The light hues of auburn, 
raven, or golden tresses, adorned the head in their 
native simplicity, putting aside the few powdered tou- 
pdes which yet lingered on the brow of prejudice and 
deformity. 

Thus, for a short time, did the Graces indeed pre- 
side at the toilet of beauty; but a strange caprice 
soon dislodged the gentle handmaids. Here stands 
affectation distorting the form into a thousand unnatu- 
ral shapes, and there, ill-taste loading it with grotesque 
ornaments (and mingled confusedly) from Glrecian and 
Eoman models, from Egypt, China, Turkey, and Hin- 
dostan. All nations are ransacked to equip a fine lady ; 
and after all, while she may strike a contemporary beau 
as a fine lady, no son of nature could possibly find 
out that she represents an elegant woman. 

In teaching a young lady to dress elegantly, we must 
first impress upon her mind that symmetry of figure 
ought ever to be accompanied by harmony of dress, 



Beautiful Women. 107 

and tliat there is a certain propriety in habiliment, 
adapted to form, complexion, and age. To preserve 
the health of the human form, is the first object of 
consideration, for without that you can neither main* 
tain its symmetry nor improve its beauty. But the 
foundation of a just proportion must be laid in infancy. 
"As the twig is bent the tree's inclined." A light 
dress, which gives freedom to the functions of life, is 
indispensable to an unobstructed growth. If the 
young fibres are uninterrupted by obstacles of art, 
they will shoot harmoniously into the form which 
nature drew. The garb of childhood should in all 
respects be easy — not to impede its movements by 
ligatures on the chest, the loins, the legs, or the arms. 
By this liberty, we shall see the muscles of the limbs 
gradually assume the fine swell and insertion which 
only unconstrained exercise can produce. The chest 
will sway gracefully on the firmly poised waist, swell- 
ing in noble and healthy expanse, and the whole 
figure will start forward at the blooming age of youth^ 
and early ripen to the maturity of beauty. 



io8 Beautiful Women, 



1 



The lovely form of woman, tlius educated, or rattel 
thus left to its natural growth, assumes a variety of 
charming characters. In one youthful figure, we see 
the lineaments of a wood-nymph, a form slight and 
elastic in all its parts. The shape, 

" Small by degrees, and beautifully less, 
From tbe soft bosom to the slender waist I" 

A foot as light as that of her whose flying step 
scarcely brushed the ^^ unbending corn,'' and limbs 
whose agile grace moved in harmony with the curves 
of her swan-like neck, and the beams of her spark- 
ling eyes. 

Another fair one appears with the chastened dignity 
of a vestal. Her proportions are of a less aerial out- 
line. As she draws near, we perceive that the contour 
of her figure is on a broader and less flexible scale 
than that of her more etherial sister. Euphrosyne 
speaks in one, Melpomene in the other. 

Between these two, lies the whole range of female 
character in form ; and in proportion as the figure 



Beautiful Women. 



109 



approaclies the one extreme or tlie other, we call it 
grave or gay, majestic or graceful. Not but that the 
same person may, by a happy combination of charms, 
unite all these qualities in herself. But unless the 
commanding figure softens the amplitude of its con- 
tour with a gentle elegance, it may possess a sort of 
regal state, but it will be heavy and ungraceful; 
and on the other hand, unless the slight and airy 
form (full of youth and animal spirits) superadds 
to these attractions the grace of restraining dignity, 
her vivacity will be deemed levity, and her sprightli- 
ness the romping of a wild hoyden. No matter what 
charms such a one may possess, she would never be 
loot d upon as a lady. 

Young women, therefore, when they present them- 
selves to the world, must not implicitly fashion their 
demeanors according to the levelling and uniform rules 
of the generality of school-governesses ; but, con- 
sidering the character of their own figures, allow their 
deportment and their dress to follow the bias c^ 
nature. 



no Beautiful Women. 

I have already observed, tliat during tlie period cf 
youth, different -women wear a variety of characters, 
such as the gay, the grave, etc., each of which has a 
style naturall}^ its own ; and even if it is found that 
this loveliest season of life places its subjects in vary- 
ing lights, how necessary does it seem that woman 
should carry this idea yet further by analogy, and 
recollect that she has a summer as well as a spring, 
an autumn, and a winter. As the aspect of the 
earth alters with the changes of the year, so does 
the appearance of woman adapt itself to the time 
which passes over her. Like the rose, she buds, she 
blooms, she fades, she dies. 

When the freshness of virgin youth vanip^.es — > 
when Mary passes her teens, and approaches her 
thirtieth year, she may then consider her day at the 
meridian ; but the sun which shines so brightly on 
her beauties, declines while it displays them. A few 
short years, and the jocund step, the airy habit, the 
sportive manner, must all be exchanged for the 
"faltering step and slow." Before this happens, it 



Beautiful Women. ill 

F 

; 

would be well for her to remember, that it is wiser {' 
for her to throw a shadow over her yet nnimpaired ] 
charms, than to hold them in the light till they are 
Been to decay. As each age has its appropriate style 
of figure, it is the business of discernment and taste 
to discover and maintain all the advantages of their 
due seasons. Nature having maintained a harmony 
between the figure of woman and her years, it is 
desirous that the consistency should extend to her 
deportment, and to the materials and fashion of her 
apparel. For youth to dress and appear like age, 
is an instance of bad taste seldom seen. "When 
virgin, bridal beauty arrays herself for conquest, 
we say that she obeys an end of her creation ; but 
when the wrinkled fair, the hoary-headed matron 
attempts to equip herself to awaken sentiments 
which, when the bloom on her cheek has disap- 
peared, her rouge can never recall, we turn away in 
sorrow or disgust, and mentally exclaim, Alas, 
Madame! it were better for you to seek for charms 
in the mental and social graces of Madame de 



112 Beautiful Women. 

Sevigne, tlian tlie meretricious arts of Ninon de 
rSnclos. 

But, tnat in some cases wrinkles may be warded 
off, and auburn tresses preserve a lengtbened fresli- 
ness, may not be denied ; and wlien nature prolongs 
tbe youth, of a Helen or a Cleopatra, it is not for man 
to see ber otherwise. These, however, are rare 
instances, and in the minds of rational women, ought 
rather to excite wonder than desire to emulate their 
extended reign. But Saint Evremond has told us. 
that "A woman's last sighs are for her beauty," and 
what this wit has advanced, my sex has been but too 
ready to confirm. A strange kind of art, a sort of 
sorcery, is prescribed in the form of cosmetics, to 
preserve female charms in perpetual youth. Alas, 
how vain! Were these composts concocted in 
Meda's caldron itself, they would fail. The only 
real secret of preserving beauty lies in three simple 
things — ^temperance, exercise, and cleanliness. 

Temperance includes moderation at table, and in 
the enjoyment of what the world calls pleasure. A 



Beautiful Women. 113 

young beauty, were slie as fair as Hebe, as elegant as 
the goddess of love herself, would soon lose those 
charms by a course of inordinate eating, drinking, 
and late hours. 

No doubt that many delicate young ladies will start 
at this last remark, and wonder how it can be that 
any well-bred person should think it possible that 
pretty ladies could be guilty of the two first mentioned 
excesses. But I do not mean feasting like a glutton, 
nor drinking to intoxication. My objection is no 
more against the quantity than the quality of the 
dishes which constitute the usual repast of a woman 
of fashion. 

Even if we take what is deemed a moderate break- 
fast, that of strong coffee, and hot bread and butter, 
you have got an agent most destructive to beauty. 
These things, long indulged in, are sure to derange 
the stomach, and by creating bihous disorders, gradu- 
ally overspread the fair skin with a wan or yellow 
hue. After this meal, a long and exhausting fast not 
unfrequently succeeds, from nine in the morning, tiU 



114 Beautiful Women. 

five or six in the afternoon, wlien dinner is served up^ 
and the half-famislied beanty sits down to sate a keen 
appetite with peppered soups, fish, meats roasted, 
boiled, fried, stewed, game, tarts, pies, puddings, ice- 
creams, cakes, &c., &c. How must the constitution 
suffer in digesting this melange I How does the 
heated complexion bear witness to the combustion 
within, and when we consider that the beverage she 
takes to dilute this mass of food and assuage the con- 
sequent fever of her stomach, is not merely water 
from the spring, but often poisonous drugs in the 
name of wines, you cannot wonder that I should warn 
this inexperienced creature against such beauty- 
destroying intemperance. Let the fashionable lady 
keep up this habit, and add the other one of late hours, 
and her looking-glass will very shortly begin to warn 
her of the fact that, ^'we all do fade as the leaf." 
The firm texture of the form gives way to a flabby 
softness, the delicate porportion yields to scraggy 
leanness or shapeless fat. The once fair skin assumes 
a palhd rigidity or a bloated redness, which the vain 



1 



Beautiful Women. 115 

but deluded creature would still regard as tlie rose of 
health, and beauty I 

To repair these ravages, comes the aid of padding 
to give shape where there is none, stays to compress 
into form the swelling chaos of flesh, and paints of 
all hues to rectify the dingy complexion ; but useless 
are these attempts — for, if dissipation, late hours, 
immoderation, and carelessness have wrecked the love- 
liness of female charms, it is not in the power of 
Esculapius himself to refit the scattered bark, or of 
the Syrens, with all their songs and wiles, to save 
its battered sides from the rocks, and make it ride the 
sea in gallant trim again. The fair lady who cannot 
so moderate her pursuit of pleasure that the feast, the 
midnight hours, the dance, shall not recur too fre- 
quently, must relinquish the hope of preserving her 
charms till the time of nature's own decay. After this 
moderation in the indulgence of pleasure, the next spe- 
cific for the preservation of beauty which I shall give, 
is that of gentle and daily exercise in the open air. 
Nature teaches us, in the gambols and sportiveness of 



Ii6 Beautiful Women. 

the lower animals, tliat bodily exertion is necessary 
for the growth, vigor, and symmetry of the animal 
frame ; while the too studious scholar and the indo- 
lent man of luxury exhibit in themselves the perni- 
cious consequences of the want of exercise. Many a 
rich lady would give thousands of dollars for that 
full rounded arm, and that peach bloom on the cheek, 
possessed by her kitchen-maid ; well, might she not 
have had both, by the same amount of exercise and 
simple living ? 

Cleanliness is the last receipt which I shall give for 
the preservation of beauty. It is an indispensable 
thing. It maintains the limbs in their pliancy, the 
skin in its softness, the complexion in its lustre, and 
the whole frame in its fairest light. The frequent use 
of the tepid bath is not more grateful to the senses, 
than it is salutary to health and beauty. It is by 
such ablutions that accidental corporeal impurities are 
thrown off, cutaneous obstructions removed, and while 
the surface of the body is preserved in its original 
brightness, many threatening, and beauty-destroying 



Beautiful Women. 117 

disorders are prevented. This delightful oriental 
fashion has for many years been growing into common 
use with well conditioned people all over the world ; 
especially on the continent of Europe is this the case. 
From the Villas of Italy to the Chateaux of France, 
from the palaces of the Muscovite to the Castles of 
Germany, we everywhere find the marble bath under 
the vaulted portico or the sheltering shade. Every 
house and every gentleman of almost every nation 
except England and America, possesses one of these 
genial friends of health and beauty. But every beau- 
tiful woman may be certain that she cannot preserve 
the brightness of her charms without a frequent resort 
to this beautifying agent. She should make the bath 
as indispensable an article in her house as her looking- 
glass. 

" This is the purest exercise of health, 
The sweet refresher of the Summer heate; 
Even from the body's purity the mind 
Keceives a secret sympathetic aid." 

Besides these rational and natural means of develop- 



ii8 Beautiful Women. 

ing and preserving the charms of woman, there are 
undoubtedly many more artificial deyices, by which a 
fair lady may keep up and show off her attractions 
to great advantage. 

During my residence at Paris, bathing in milk waa 
practised by every fashionable beau.ty who could 
possibly afford the expense of such a luxury. To 
such an extent was this custom carried, that there 
really became a great scarcity of milk for domestic 
purposes, until at length the Police discovered that 
the venders were in the habit of buying back the 
milk which had been used in the bath from the ser« 
vants, and serving it over again to their tea and 
coffee drinking customers. In consequence of this 
practice, the price of the article was so advanced that 
while hundreds of fashionable women were swimming 
in milk eyerj morning, thousands of families were 
obliged to dispense with the use of it in their choco- 
late and coffee. 

But a far less expensive and probably more scien- 
tific bath for cleansing and beautifying the body, ia 



Beautiful Women. 119 

that of tepid water and bran, wMcTi is really a 
remarkable softener and purifier of tbe skin. 

The celebrated Madame Yestris slept every niglit 
with, ker face plastered in a kind of paste to drive 
back tke wrinkles, and keep ker complexion fresk 
and fair. Tkis notorious beauty kad ker wkite satin 
boots sewed on ker feet every morning, and of course 
tkey kad to be ripped off at nigkt, and tke same pair 
could be worn but a single day. 

Tkis lady rejoiced in tke reputation of kaving the 
kandsomest foot and ankle of any woman in tke 
world. 

It is not an unfrequent custom witk faskionable 
beauties at Paris, to bind tkeir faces on going to bed 
at nigkt witk tkin slices of raw beef, wkick is said to 
keep tke skin from wrinkles, wkile it gives freskness 
and brilliancy to tke complexion. But wkat a sigkt 
it would be for tke lover to look upon tke face of kis 
beloved tkus done into a sandwick, and bound up 
witk a napkin ! But tkese tkings are not for lovera 
to see — ^tkey are not even for lovers to kear ; and J 



120 Beautiful Women, ^ 

expect the gentlemen to have gallantry enongli not 
to listen to a single word of the secrets I am now dis- 
closing. The Spanish women are particularly proud 
of a small foot and a white hand, and to secure 
tliis object, the poor creatures will torture them- 
selves by wearing tight bandages on their feet in bed, 
and sleeping all night with their hands held up by 
pulleys, in order to make them bloodless and white. 
The women of the East beautify themselves by 
bathing and friction. The cosmetic of the Turks 
is friction. They rouge themselves a little, and 
paint their eyebrows with sourma, and like other 
Eastern women, the nails of their hands and feet 
with henna. Eastern women never wear shoes in 
the house ; but water and friction are the chief 
beautifiers in an Eastern lady's toilet. One of the 
most famous cosmetics known to the fashionable 
beauties was the Creme de PEnclos, the mysterious 
components of which were lemon juice, milk, and 
white brandy. But there was a cosmetic still more 
famous known to the cunning beauties of the court 



Beautiful Women. I2i 

of Charles IL, wliicli really possessed the power of 
calling tlie crimson stream of blood to tlie exter- 
nal fibres of the face, and produced on the cheeks a 
beautiful rosy color which was like the bloom of 
nature itself. In the time of George I., it was a 
custom with the beauties of the court to take quick- 
silver in order to render the skin white and fair. In 
some of the Grerman States to this day, the women 
are in the habit of drinking the waters of arsenic 
springs to keep them young-looking and beautiful, 
but when once they begin this custom, they are 
obliged to continue it through life. 

But I weary of this subject of Cosmetics, as every 
woman of sense will at last weary of the use of them. 
It is a lesson which is sure to come ; but, in the lives 
of most fashionable ladies, it has small chance of being 
needed until that unmentionable time, when men will 
cease to make baubles and playthings of them. It takes 
most women two-thirds of their lifetime to discover, 
that men may be amused by, without respecting them ; 
and every woman may make up her mind that to be 



122 Beautiful Women. 

really respected, slie nuist possess merit, site must tave 
accomplisliments of mind and heart, and there can 
be no real beauty witlioiit these. If the soul is 
without cultivation, "without refinement, without 
taste, without the sweetness of affection, not all 
the mysteries of art can make the face beautiful; and 
on the other hand, it is impossible to dim the bright> 
ness of an elegant and polished mind, its radiance 
strikes through the encasements of deformity, and 
asserts its sway over the world of the affections. 

It has been my privilege to see the most celebrated 
Beauties that shine in the gilded courts of fashion 
throughout the world — from St. James to St. Peters- 
burgh, from Paris to India, and yet I know of no art 
which can atone for the defect of an unpolished mind 
and an unlovely heart. That charming activity of 
soul, that spiritual energy, which gives animation, 
grace, and living light to the animal frame, is, after all, 
the real source of Woman's Beauty. It is that which 
gives eloquence to the language of her eyes, which 
gives the sweetest expression to her face, and lights 



Beautiful Women. 123 

ap her wliole ^personnel as if her very body thoiiglit. 
I never myself behold a creature with such sweet 
and spiritual beauty, but I fall in love with her my- 
self, and only wish I were a man that I could marry 
her. 



Gallantry 



9 



Gallantry 



^•¥ 



A HISTORY of the beginning of tlie reign of 
gallantry would carry ns back to the creation of the 
world; for I believe that about the first thing that 
man began to do after he was created, was to make 
love to woman. 

The Jewish and Christian accounts seem to agree 
in this matter; and as for the Heathen record, the 
life of even Jupiter himself was little else than a 
history of his gallantry. In the service of the fair 
sex he was converted into a satyr, a shepherd, a bull, 
a swan, and a golden shower; and so entirely 
devoted to the cause of love was he, that his wife, 
Juno, mockingly calls him Cupid's whirligig. 

Alas! I am much afraid that this old heathen 



128 Gallantry, 

divinity lias never been wanting for millions of 
disciples, even among the high and noble of Christian 
lands. The proudest heroes and the mightiest kings 
I have met with have been just about as pliant 
" whirligigs" to Cupid as was the great thunderer of 
Olympus ; and history teaches me that my observa- 
tions are confirmed by the lives of some of the 
gravest philosophers and bravest generals of anti- 
quity. If we look to an Alcibiades, a Demosthenes, 
a Caesar, or an Alexander, we find that their gal- 
lantries form no inconsiderable portion of their 
histories. 

But gallantry, as I propose to treat of it in this 
lecture, arose more particularly with the institution 
of chivalry, and formed, we may say, the soul of the 
most noble and daring exploits of chivalry during its 
brilliant career. Indeed the eighth and ninth virtues 
of chivalry which every knight had to swear to obey, 
were to "Uphold the maiden's right," and "Not see 
the widow wronged." 

In the eleventh century, it was declared by the 



Gallantry. 1 29 

celebrated Council of Clermont, wHch authorized the 
first crusade, tliat every person of noble birth, on 
attaining twelve years of age, should take a solemn 
oath before the bishop of his diocese, to defend to the 
utmost the women of noble birth, both married and 
single, and to have especial care of widows and 
orphans. So that to whatever class of duties the can- 
didate for the honors of chivalry was attached, he 
never forgot that he was the squire of dames, or the 
knight of the fair ladies. 

Since the knights were bound by oath to defend 
woman, the principle was felt in all its force and 
spirit by him who aspired to chivalric honors. Love 
was mixed in the mind of the young knight with 
images of war, and he l^herefore thought that his 
mistress, like honor, could only be gained through 
difficulties and dangers; and from this feeling pro- 
ceeded the wild romance of the loves of knighthood. 
So the courage of the knight of chivalry was chiefly 
inspired by the lady of his affections. 

Women were regarded as the highest incentives to 

6* 



130 Gallantry. 

valor; and I remember tlie stcry of a Danish 
cliampion wlio had lost liis cliin and one of his 
cheeks by a single stroke of a sword, who refused to 
return to his home, because, said he, "The Danish 
girls will never willingly give me a kiss while I have 
such a battered face." The knight, whose heart was 
warmed with the true light of chivalry, never wished 
that the dominion of his mistress should be less than 
absolute. 

There was no discussion then about "woman's 
rights," or "woman's influence" — ^woman had what- 
ever her soul desired, and her will was the watchword 
for battle or peace. Love was as marked a feature in 
the chivalric character as valor ; and he who "under- 
stood how to break a lance, and did not understand 
how to win a lady, was held to be but half a man. 
He fought to gain her smiles — ^he lived to be worthy 
of her love. Grower, who wrote in the days of 
Edward III., has thus summed up the chivalric devo- 
tion to woman : 

"What thing she bid me do, I do, 



Gallantry. 131 

And where she bid me go, I go ; 
And when she Hkes to call, I come, 
I serve, I bow, I look, I loute, 
My eye it followeth her about." 

In those days to be "a servant of tlie ladies" waa 
no mere figure of the imagination — and to be in love 
was no idle pastime ; but to be profoundly, furiously, 
almost ridiculously in earnest. In the mind of the 
cavalier, woman was a being of mystic power. As in 
the old forests of Germany, sbe had been listened to 
like a spirit of the woods, melodious, solemn, and 
oracular ; so wben cliivalry became an institution, the 
same idea of something supernaturally beautiful in 
her cbaracter threw a shadow over ber life, and she 
was not only loved but revered. And never were 
men more constant to their fair ladies than in the 
proudest days of cbivalry. 

Fickleness would have been a species of impiety, 
for woman was not a mere toy to be played with, but 
a divinity who was to be worshipped. And this treat- 
inent of woman had its effect on her character, and 



132 Gallantry. 

gave to "her a nobility of feeling, a heroism of heart 
which made her the fit companion of men of chival- 
rous deeds. A damsel, on hearing that her knight 
had survived his honor, exclaimed, "I should have 
loved him better dead than alive !" A lady who was 
reproached for loving an ugly man, replied, "He is so 
valiant, I have never looked in his face." The gal- 
lantry of knighthood certainly acted powerfully in 
giving elevation and purity to the character of 
woman. 

We behold a further illustration of this kind of 
gallantry in the history of Tournaments. It was the 
beauty of woman which inspired the heroic and 
graceful achievements of the tournaments. The 
daring knight acquired almost superhuman strength 
when .he saw the lady of his affections smiling upon 
his gallant skill. And certainly woman did perform 
a great mission in those days. Under her influence 
the fierceness of war was mellowed into elegance, 
and even feudalism abated something of its sternness. 
The ladief. were the supreme judges of touraamentSj 



Gallantry. 133 

and if any complaint was made against a knight, they 
determined tlie case witliout appeal. 

Every gallant kniglit wore tlie device of Ms lady- 
love as Hs coat of arms, and to gain her approbation 
was the soul of his noble daring. In the heat of the 
conflict he would call upon her name as if there were 
magic in the thought of her beauty to sustain his 
strength and courage. Thus the air at the tourna 
ments was rent with the names of fair ladies, and 
**0n, valiant knights ! fair eyes behold you," was the 
spirit-stirring cry of old warriors who could no longer 
join in the conflict themselves. 

In those days kingdoms were lost and won, and 
life itself was thrown away like a worthless bauble, 
all in the service of the ladies. 

In the days of Alphonso XI., King of Spain, in 
the beginning of the fourteenth century, the gallantry 
of knighthood made it a rule, that if any knight insti- 
tuted an action against the daughter of a brother 
knight, no lady or gentlewoman should ever be his 
lady-love or wife. If he happened, when riding to 



134 Gallantry* 

mest a lady or gentlewoman of the court, it was Maf 
duty to alight from Ms horse, and tender his service, 
upon pain of losing a month's pay, and the favor of 
all the dames and damsels. The same statute of gal- 
lantry decreed, that he who refused to perform any 
service which a fair lady commanded, should be 
branded with the title, ^^ The Discourteous Knight." 

At the court of the Scottish kings, the knight was 
obliged to swear: ^' I shall defend the just action and 
quarrel of all the ladies of honor, of all true and 
friendless widows, of orphans, and of maidens of 
good fame." 

Such was the gallantry of knighthood. It gave 
woman not only love, but respect and protection. 

In this respect there was a great resemblance be- 
tween the Knights and the Troubadours. Both 
devoted themselves to the glory of their ladies — ^the 
former as heroes, the latter as poets. The knight ser- 
ved his lady with his sword, the troubadour with his 
songs. In fact, it was the chivalrous devotion to the 
beauty of woman, that particularly manifested itself 



Gallantry. 133 

in tlie sudden and magical unfolding of tliat poesy 
whicli received among tlie Provengals the name of 
" La gaie Science^'^ and which, diffusing its influence 
oyer all the intellectual nations of Europe, gave birth 
to a rich and various literature of chivalrous poetry 
and love-songs. "We find it especially in the literature 
of the Troubadours. As a specimen let me quote an 
example jfrom the poetry of Guido Cavalcanti, who 
with a sort of fine madness sang perpetually of his 
love for a beautiful Spanish girl of Tobosa. 

"Who is this, on whom all men gaze as she approaches; who 
causeth the air to tremble around her with tenderness; who 
leadeth love by her side I in whose presence men are dumb, and 
can only sigh ? Ah ! Heaven ! what power in every glance of 
those eyes! She alone is the lady of gentleness — ^beside her 
all others seem ungracious and unkind. Who can describe her 
sweetness, her loveliness ? To her every virtue bows, and beauty 
points to her as her own divinity." 

That, ladies, is the way they u.sed to make love in 
the age of the Troubadours. Love was certainly a 
very earnest, and sometimes a very fearful thing in 
those days. 



136 Gallantry. 

We may take as an illustration the tragic fate of tlie 
poet Cabestaing, a troubadour of noble birth, who be- 
came enamored of the charms of Lady Marguerita, 
wife of Eaimond of Castle Eoussillon. The poet 
declared his love in the following strain — 

" Gray is my song ; for tlie softest love inspires me ! thou, 
whose beauty transports my soul, may I be forsaken, may I be 
cursed by love if I give my heart to another. Was my faith to 
heaven equal, I should instantly be received into paradise I I 
have no pov^^er to defend myself against your charms ; be honora- 
ble therefore and take pity on me. Permit, at least, that I kiss 
your gloves ; I presume not to ask any higher mark of your 
favor." 

To this song the Lady Marguerita replied, 

'' I swear to thee thou shalt never have cause to change thy 
opinion. Never, no never will I deceive thee." 

Through the imprudence of the lady, this love be- 
came known to her husband, Lord Eaimond, and in a 
passion of jealousy he formed a pretext to draw 
Cabestaing out of the castle, where he stabbed him, 
cut off his head, and tore out his heart, which he took 



Gallantry. 137 

to his cook witli orders to have it dressed in tlie mart' 
ner of venison, and then had it served up for his wife 
to eat. After she had partaken of the meal, he asked 
if she knew what she had been eating. ^^No," says 
she, " but it is most delicious." " I believe it," said 
he, *' since it is what you have long delighted in," and 
exhibiting the head of Cabestaing, exclaimed ; '' behold 
him whose heart you have just eaten !" At this 
shocking sight, at these horrible words, she fainted , 
but soon recovering her senses, she cried out: — ^' Yes, 
barbarian, I have found this meat so exquisite, that 
lest I should lose the taste of it, I will never eat any 
other," and she instantly precipitated herself from the 
balcony, and was dashed to pieces. 

But in the gallantry of the Troubadours it was 
generally the opposite sex which suffered sorrows and 
death for their love. 

The author of the Life of Petrarch relates an 
interesting story of the unsuccessful love of Eichard de 
Berbesieu, a poet and Troubadour of no mean genius, 
who fell in. love with a rich Baroness, who was the 



138 Gallantry. 

wife of G-eofl&oi de Tours. Slie received the f oet's 
professions with, pride, as there was nothing she wished 
for so much as to be celebrated by a poet of his 
genius ; but as he soon discovered that this was her 
only object in encouraging his passion, he complained 
bitterly of her rigor, and finally quitted her for another 
lady, who, after encouraging him, expressed the great- 
est disdain for his caprice. " Gro," said she, "you are 
unworthy of any woman's love. You are the falsest 
man in the world, to abandon a lady so lovely, so 
amiable. Gro, since you have forsaken her, you will 
forsake any other." 

The poet took her advice and returned and sought 
the grace of Madame de Tours again, but she scornfully 
refused him, and in the rage of his disappointment 
he composed the following invective against women : 

"To seek for fidelity in women, is to seek for lioly things 
among the carcasses of dead aiptd putrid dogs — ^to confide in 
them is the confidence of the dove in the kite. If they have no 
children they bestow a supposed ofispring, that they may inherit 
the dowry which belongs only to mothers. What you love the 



I 



Gallantry. 1 39 

most, their arts will cause you to hate ; and when they have 
filled up the measure of their iniquity, they laugh at their disor- 
ders, and justify their guilt." 

Overwhelmed with, despair, our troubadour retired 
into a wood, where he built himself a cottage, resolv- 
ing never more to appear in ^the world unless he could 
be restored to the favor of Madame de Tours. 

All the knights of the country were touched with 
his fate. When two years had elapsed, they came 
and besought him to abandon his retreat, but he 
remained firm to his first resolution. At last, all the 
knights and ladies assembled, and went to bespeak 
Madp me de Tours to have pity on him ; but she answered 
that she would never grant this request till a hundred 
ladies and a hundred knights, who were truly in love, 
came to her with hands joined, and knees bent, to 
solicit the pardon of Berbesieu. On this condition she 
promised to forgive him. This news restored hope to 
the poet, and he gave vent to his grief in a poem 
which began with this paragraph : 

" As an elephant, who is overthrown, cannot be raised up tiH 



1 40 Gallantry. 

a number of elephants rouse him by their cries, so neither should 
I have ever been reheved from my distress, if these loyal lovers 
had not obtained my grace, by beseeching it of her who alone can 

bestow fehcity." 

The ladies and knights assembled according to tlie 
nnmber prescribed; they went to intercede for tMs 
unfortunate lover, and they obtained for him tlie par- 
don promised. Biit Madame de Tours died soon 
after ; and ber troubadour not being able to liye in a 
country wbicb. called to his mind the sufferings he had 
undergone, and the loss of his beloved mistress, with- 
drew into Spain, where he ended his days. 

This seems more like a romance than a story of 
real life, but the history of the Troubadours is full of 
actual events still more strange and romantic. The 
student of history will be struck with the sincerity 
and genuine earnestness of the gallantry of those days. 

I have read with admiration the confession of Wil- 
liam Magret, a poet of Yiennois, who addressed this 
remarkable message to Peter II. who was killed at the 
battle of Muret : " Since God has placed you in hea^ 



Gallantry. 141 

ven, be mindful of us who are left on earth." But 
what has most charmed me is the simple manner in 
which he describes his love: *^I am so distracted 
with love, that being seated, I perceive not those who 
enter, and do not rise to receive them; and I seek 
for that I hold in my hand. As I beheve in that God 
who was born on Christmas, I never committed fault 
or crime to the lady of my love, except it was to extin- 
guish the lights to hide my confusion from her, and 
lest she should perceive the tears that roll down my 
cheeks, when I contemplated her sweetness." 

It was not uncommon in those days for the lover to 
fast, and torture himself, and perform incredible feats 
of self-denial, to prove the sincerity of his love for 
his mistress. Sometimes during the intense heat of 
summer, they would wrap themselves in the thickest 
and warmest clothing and run up the steepest hills, 
walk bare-foot over the burning sands, and then 
during the frosts of winter they would clothe them- 
selves in the thinnest garments, and expose themselves 

to the frosts and biting winds, to prove that "love 
10 



1 42 Gallantry. 

could suffer all things for love." And sometimes these 
poor fanatics were frozen to death while on these 
pilgrimages of love. 

There can be no doubt that gallantry had, at least, 
an element of sincerity in it, in those days. The deep, 
intense earnestness of their love-songs is sufficient 
proof of this. There was something almost profane 
in the devotion which these Troubadours exhibited 
to woman. Take for instance the following extract 
from Peri Eogier, a troubadour of great poetical 
genius who flourished in the twelfth century — 

" Without doubt God was astonished when I consented to 
separate myself from my lady : yes, God cannot but have given 
me much credit, for he is well aware that if I lost her, I could 
never again know happiness, and that he himself possesses 
nothing that could console me. Oh ! sweet friend ! when the 
soft breeze comes wafting from the loved spot you inhabit, it seems 
to me that I inhale the breath of Paradise. Oh, if I can but 
enjoy the charm of your glances, I do not aspire to any greater 
favor — I believe myself in possession of God himself." 

The object of this profane adoration was the beauti- 
fiil Ermengarde, the daughter of Yiscount Emeric II. 



Gallantry. ^ 143 

of Narbonne, who, thongli site accepted the admira- 
tion of tlie poet, was obliged to send Mm away from 
her court, for the protection of her own reputation. ' 

It was not an unfrequent occurrence for these gal- 
lant knights of the quill to fall in love with fair 
ladies whom they had never seen, and to burn with a 
flame for charms which they had only heard described, 
and which they would waste their lives in trying to 
possess. 

Thus Jauflfre Eudel, having heard a description of 
the beauty of the Princess Melindeusende, daughter 
of the Count of Tripoli, and the affianced bride of 
Manuel, Emperor of Constantinople, became so ena- 
mored with the idea of her charms, that he quitted his 
native land, and estabhshed himself near the being 
whose loveliness he had sung but never seen. But, 
alas ! his heated imagination was undermining his 
health, and he dropped dead at the very moment he 
attained the object of his desires, and beheld for the 
first time the fair phantom of his dreams. 

But I must close this sketch of the gallantry of the 



144 Gallantry. 

[Troubadours with, an extract from William Montagno* 
gont, a famous kniglit of Provence, a fine poet, and a 
tender lover. The object of his sonnets was the 
beautiful Jafferaude of the castle of Lunel : 

" Love inspires the greatest actions I Love engages the most 
amiable conduct 1 Love fills with joy I To act fraudulently in 
love, is a proof you have never loved. You cannot love, nor 
ever ought to be loved, if you ask anything of your mistress 
which virtue condemns. It is not love that seeks dishonor of 
virtue. Love has no v^ill but that of the beloved object, nor 
seeks aught but what will augment her glory. True lovers are 
known by these rules ; he who follows them, G-od will reward ; 
but the deceiver shall come to shame. Never did I form a wish 
that could wound the heart of my beloved!" 

There is an instinct in every true woman's heart, 
that teaclies lier that the sentiments of tms nooie 
Troubadour are true, and every man who scouts them 
shows Mmself unworthy of woman's confidence. 

From the time that gallantry arose with th.e insti- 
tution of Chivalry, up to the period to which I have 
now traced it in the literature of the Troubadours, it 
was a great refiner and softener of manners, and it was 



Gallantry, 143 

a great friena to -woman. It gave her a character of 
dignity, truth, refinement, and genuine nobility, which 
she had never before possessed. 

But the good it was destined to do soon reached its 
meridian; and what was born of the rugged and 
honest spirit of chivalry soon degenerated into effemi- 
nacy, thence it sank into mere voluptuousness, and 
thence into crime. 

Witness, for instance, the slough into which gal- 
lantry had fallen at no later day than the times of 
Charles. Compare the poetry of Thomas Carew, a 
man of great learning, wit, and genius, attached to the 
court of this monarch, with the gallant poetry of the 
Troubadours of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, 
and it is like descending from the fresh mountain air 
into the putrid atmosphere of a charnel-house. The 
following verse from Carew is a fair specimen of the 
effeminacy of the gallant poetry of that time : 

" In her fair cheeks two pits do He, 
To bury those slain by her eye ; 
So, spite of death, this comforts me, 

7 



146 Gallantry. 

That fairly buried I shall be. 

Mj grave with rose and lily spread, 

0, 'tis a life to be so dead. 

Come then and kill me with thy eye, 

For if thou ^et me live, I die." 

The gallant, wlio in the days of chivalry was either 
a bold knight, fighting for the glory of his country 
and the honor of his fair lady, or a scarcely less chi- 
valrous Troubadour singing her charms in strains 
that made the age in love with virtue, has here 
descended to a false, intriguing, and corrupt adulator, 
whose love is a fever, and whose gallantry is a trap 
for a woman's honor. 

Louis XI Y., though he was perhaps the most 
gallant moj^iarch that ever lived, was still unlike 
Charles II. ; and his court, though one of the gayest in 
the history of the world, was unstained by many of 
the excesses that disgraced that of Charles II. Louis 
XIV. was a gallant without being a roue ; though 
we are able to say these pleasant things of the 
French king only when we compare him with the 



Gallantry. 147 

Englisli Charles. But it may perhaps be passed to 
the credit of his self-respect and refined taste, that the 
ladies who were his favorites were among not only 
the most beautiful, but the most refined and we may 
almost say the best women of France. 

We may refer to the beautiful and gentle-minded 
Madame de la Valli&re, who really loved the man, and 
not the sovereign, in Louis XIV. When the death of 
the son she had by that king was announced, she 
said — " Alas ! I have less reason to be grieved for his 
death than for his birth." 

Many years before this accomplished lady died, she 
retired into a convent, and while there she wrote a 
devotional treatise entitled ^'Eeflections upon the 
Mercy of God." The eloquent Bossuet preached a 
sermon upon her taking the veil, at which were pre- 
sent Louis the Fourteenth's queen and all the court. 
The text was peculiar, especially for Louis's queen to 
hear — ^' And he that sat upon the throne, said, I will 
renew all things." 

A celebrated picture of the Magdalen, painted by 



J 48 Gallantry. 

Le Brun for tlie convent in wMcIl Madame de la 
Valli^re resided, was for a long time supposed to be a 
portrait of tMs beautiful and sincere penitent. 

Madame de Maintenon, another lady of Louis the 
Fourteenth, was not less charming and intellectually 
accomplished. She must have been very beautiful. 
The Abb^ de Choisy dedicated his translation of Tho- 
mas- A'Kempis to her, with this motto from the 
Psalms : — 

" Hear, my daughter, and see, and incline thine ear, and the 
king shall desire thy beauty." 

This gifted lady once made this confession to her 
niece. " I was naturally ambitious. I fought against 
that passion. I really thought I should be happy, 
when that ambition was gratified. That infatuation 
lasted only three days." Her influence upon the 
king was always refining and beneficent. One day 
she asked him for some alms. "Alas! Madame," 
replied the Prince, " what I give in alms are merely 
fresh burdens upon my people. The more I give 



Gallantry. . 149 

away the more I must take from them." This, sire, 
is true," replied Madame de Maintenon, *^but it is 
right to ease the wants of those whom your former 
taxes to supply the expenses of your wars and of 
your buildings have reduced to misery. It is truly 
just that those who have been ruined by you, should 
be supported by you." 

This lady survived the king several years, and the 
Eegent Duke of Orleans took care that the pension, 
left her by the king should be regularly paid to her. 

When Peter the Great visited Paris, he was very 
desirous of seeing Madame de Maintenon. She was 
very infirm, and in bed when he visited her. He 
drew aside the curtains to look at that face which had 
captivated her sovereign. A blush overpowered her 
pale and withered cheek, and the Czar retired. 

Such were the ladies upon whom the gallant Louis 
XIV. bestowed his love. If we must regard them as 
fallen, we are compelled to look upon them as beau- 
tifal flowers growing in a morass. 

Francis the First, another king of France, was also 



1 5'o Gallantry. 

a model of gallantry in his way. Indeed lie was an 
accomplislied prince in all respects. Wlien, after 
prodigies of valor, lie lost tlie battle of Pa via, lie sent 
liis motlier, Louisa of Savoy, tlie news of Ms cap- 
tivity in a dignified and expressive sentence which 
will ever be remembered, '^ Tout est perdu^ Madame^ 
Tiormis Vhonneur'^ — "All is lost. Madam, except honor." 

When this accomplished prince dehvered up his 
sword to Lannoi, the Spanish general, he said, " Sir, 
I dehver you the sword of a monarch, who is entitled 
to some distinction, from having with his own h?nd 
killed so many of your soldiers before he surren- 
dered himself, and who is at last a prisoner, from a 
wretched reverse of fortune, rather than from any 
cowardice." 

This monarch was as gentle and refined as a lover, 
as he was brave as a soldier, and great as a king. It 
was he who declared that, "A court without ladies, 
is like spring without flowers." And yet he once 
engraved upon a window at EambouiUet, with a 
diamond, the following verse : 



Gallantry. 151 

" Lovely sex, too given to rage, 
Lovely sex. too prone to change ; 
Alas ! what man can trust your charms, 
Or seek his safety in your arms." 

The Spaniards are about the most gallant people 
of modern nations. Indeed, in Spain, there yet 
lingers a remnant of the ancient feeling of real gal- 
lantry. 

Madrid is vocal almost every night in the year 
with the most charming love-songs chanted nnder the 
windows of a thousand fair ladies. It sometimes 
occurs that two parties happen to meet in honor of 
the same lady, and then a regular pitched battle is 
quit^L likely to follow. A beautiful woman is sure to 
be respected almost to adoration in Spain. Even the 
common people will greet her with tokens of admi- 
ration in the street, and exclaim, *^ Blessed be the 
mother that gave birth to such beauty." I have seen 
the students throw down their cloaks in the dust to 
form a carpet for a beautiful woman to cross the 
street upon ; and all this from no affectatioxi of gal- 



152 Gallantry. 

lantry, but from a genuine and honest admiration. 
In this respect there is a wide difference between the 
Spaaiish and French. The attachment of the sexes 
which in France is a light, variable feeling, is in 
Spain a serious and lasting sentiment. Similar 
differences may be observed in the mode in which 
each nation pursues its amusements, such as music 
and dancing, which are favorites with both. Spanish 
music is grave and tender, being in some measure an 
imitation of the ancient music of the Moors, improved 
by lessons from the Italian school. 

There is no such thing as genuine gallantry either 
in France or England. In France, the relation between 
the sexes is too fickle, variable, and insincere, for any 
nearer approach to gallantry than flirtation ; while in 
England the aristocracy, which is the only class in 
that country that could have the genuine feeling of 
gallantry, are turned shop-owners and tradesmen. 
The Smiths and Jones's who figure on the signboards 
have the nobility standing behind them as silent 
partners. The business habits of the United States 



Gallantry. 1 53 

and the examples of rapid fortunes in this country, 
have quite turned the head of John Bull, and he is 
very fast becoming a sharp, thrifty, money-getting 
Yankee. A business and commercial people have no 
leisure for the cultivation of that feeling and romance 
which is the foundation of gallantry. The activities 
of human nature seek other more practical and more 
useful channels of excitement. Instead of devoting 
a life to the worship and service of the fair ladies, 
they are building telegraphs, railroads, steamboats, 
constructing schemes of finance, and enlarging the 
area of practical civilization. 

But still this age has a kind of gallantry, a sort of 
devotion to the sex, which perhaps deserves no 
higher name than flirtation, and means, I believe, 
generally, making a fool of a woman, by attentions 
which are hollow, fickle, and too often insincere. 

This modern gallant, or flirt, is a poor imitation of 

the genuine gallant of the days of chivalry. He is 

covered over, as with a cloak, with an outside devo* 

tion to woman. 

7^ 



J 54 Gallantry. 

He is made of nothing bnt hands and feet to serve 
lier. His eye is practised and quick to see all her 
wants, even before she knows them herself. If she 
drops her fan, he catches it before it has time to reach 
the floor. If she wants a glass of water, he glidea 
oyer the carpet like a shadow, and places it in her 
hand even before she has been able to finish the sen- 
tence which makes known her wishes. He is the first 
one to discover any new or rare article of her ap- 
parel, — and does not hesitate to point it out at once, 
and will declare that she never appeared in anything 
so becoming, and that she really never looked so 
charming before. And, ten to one, he will whisper 
her that he is afraid that every woman present will 
be jealons of her charms. And all this, if she is not 
one of the " strong-minded," or at least if she is not 
well instructed in the v/ays of the world, and especially 
in the ways of men, will be successful. Mary Wol- 
stoncraft exclaims^— ^' How many women has the 
cold unmeaning intercourse of gallantry rendered 
vain and useless I" Alas, I am ashamed to think of 



Gallantry. i ^S 

how many, and yet justice would dictate a word of 
apology for my sex, for are we not made, from our 
cradle to onr womanhood, to feel that beantjr is onr 
sole capital to begin life with ? What wonder, then, 
we should listen approvingly, and at length affection- 
ately, to the one who tells us that we are rich in this ? 
The cold censure of the world may fall heavily upon 
the poor victim of delusion and flattery, yet I have 
somehow a feeling that the eye of Omniscience looks 
down pityingly upon the errors consequent upon those 
snares which this species of gallantry throws perpe- 
tually in the pathway of woman. And this kind of 
gallantry is getting progressively falser, meaner, and 
more pernicious, as it comes down further jfrom the 
age of chivalry that produced the genuine sentiment. 
Lord Chesterfield makes the following shameless con- 
fession. '^ I will own to you, under the secresy of 
confession, that my vanity has very often made me 
take great pains to make many a ^oman in love with 
me if I could, for whose person I would not have 
given a pinch of snuff," There, ladies, is the con* 



1 56 Gallantry. 



fession of tlie king of modern gallants, for you. But 
then, that is a game at which, the women can play as 
well as the men, though as a general thing I am in- 
cHned to believe that the women get the worst of it, 
for they have more heart and natural sincerity, and 
are therefore more likely to get wounded. 

But let no woman deceive herself with the idea 
that there is any meaning or any sincerity in the 
thousand sweet and pleasant things, the man of this 
kind of gallantry breathes in her ear. The feigned 
respect of this gallantry is a mere over-acted farce. 
Whatever they may say — and words are never want- 
ing of course — their admiration of woman lies not in 
their hearts, but in their eyes and on their tongues. 
These furious worshippers of women would scorn 
even a Diana herself, were she a little on the wane ; 
and while professing themselves slaves to the whole 
sex, "the beauteous are their prey, the rest their scorn.'' 

Oh, how they will swear that they love you — ^love you 
to distraction — ^love the very ground you walk upon— 
dream of you all night, and sigh for you all day 



1 



Gallantry. 157 

With-OTit your love, existence has grown a burden 
tlie very sky above tliem is in darkness, and every 
flower on tlie earth has withered and lost its fragrance. 
Your eyes alone are the stars of their sky, your love 
the only solace of life. 

Now is not this very fine, ladies ? But then it is 
all, all deception. It is a mere trap to catch the un- 
wary. The man who truly loves you, never runs 
on in that style. In real love there is a diffidence, a 
natural modesty, and a profound and almost silent 
respect, which never can assume the bold and impu- 
dent language of flattery. 

So I beg young ladies never to have the least fear 
that a man who makes love to them after this extrava- 
gant fashion, is going to do himself the least harm, if 
they should refuse his suit. Be sure these gallants 
have no idea of dashing out their brains for any 
woman. It will be a great deal for them if they even 
deign a sigh for the ruined victim of their deception. 
Like ^neas, they will take their siesta in comfort, 

though their poor Didos are broken-hearted ; and like 
11 



1 58 Gallantry. 

anotlier braggadocio of Troy, they have no gallantry 
even where their object is achieved — as Mr. Pope 
translates it : — 

" No more Achilles draws 
His conquering sword in any woman's cause." 

In Poland there still hngers, as in Spain, a remnant 
of the ancient feeling of gallantry. But it often ex- 
hibits itself in shapes which would surprise the busi- 
ness-minded loyers of the United States. In Poland 
I have seen the shoe of a beautiful woman filled with 
champagne, and passed up and down the table for a 
drinking-cup for the gentlemen. But this compHment 
I have never seen paid except to a lady, who was 
celebrated for a beautiful foot. 

In that country I also witnessed a very marked 
little piece of gallantry. A lady was performing a 
short journey on horseback with several gentlemen, 
when a heavy rain set in, and the gentlemen all took 
off their coats and pinned them together, so as to 
form a mantle, which completely covered her from 



Gallantry. 1 59 

her shonlders to her feet, while they rode for over an 
hour in their shirt-sleeves, through the pelting rain. 

Alas ! poor Poland. It is sad to think of so gal- 
lant and brave a people, broken up and scattered to 
the ends of the earth. 

■ There are at the present time in the United States, 
daany exiles from this nation, pursuing in silence, 
almost in secresy, all kinds of humble toil for a main- 
tenance; men whom I once knew to be among the 
most wealthy, gallant, and accomphshed gentlemen 
of E^^rope. But if justice has not forsaken the earth, 
that wronged and glorious people will one day take 
its place among the nations. 

In Italy there are hardly any remains of the old 
chivalric spirit of gallantry, and what little there is, 
is confined to the ladies who become distinguished in 
the field of art. A beautiful woman who has genius 
in any line of art, will awaken at least the external 
show of gallantry; but all other women in that 
country, however beautiful they may be, must be 
intent with miserable imitations of it. 



1 bo Gallantry. 

The late Emperor Nicliolas was one of tlie most 
gallant monarchs in modern times, in the new sense 
of that word. But there was the real old spirit of 
gallantry in his blood. His marriage with the charm- 
ing Princess of Prussia had an amusing piece of gal- 
lantry in it. It is customary, when a monarch is to be 
married, to have the whole affair arranged by the courts 
of the marrying parties. But not so with Nicholas. 
He determined to pick out his own wife, and he went 
rambling about among the courts of Europe in search 
of a woman who had those peculiar personal charms 
which could captivate his heart. At last he found 
such a one in the person of the young and beautiful 
Princess of Prussia. At her father's court he tarried 
long enough to become well acquainted with her qua- 
lities of mind and heart ; and one day at dinner he 
rolled a small ring in a piece of bread, and handed 
it to the princess, saying to her in an under-tone, 
" If you will accept my hand, put this ring on your 
finger." And that is the way he popped the ques- 
tion. She took no time to deliberate, in the fashion 



Gallantry. 161 

of cunning prudes, but suffering her heart to tell the 
truth, at once and instantly put the ring on her finger. 
Nicholas was one of the finest looking men I ever 
saw, and at the time of his marriage, he and his 
spou.se were considered the handsomest couple in 
Europe. 

Notwithstanding the innumerable little gallantries 
of Nicholas, he was always kind, attentive, and afiec- 
tionate to his wife; and she had the wisdom and 
amiability never to annoy him with any of the re- 
proaches of jealousy. 

In 1830 she lost her beauty by a most singular 
freak of nature, occasioned by a fright she received at 
the moment when the Emperor rushed into the pre- 
sence of the infuriated mob that sought his life, and 
commanded them to "down on their knees" before 
him. 

It was after this that Nicholas fell in love with that 
young and beautiful Nellydoflf, one of the maids of 
honor to the Empress. The Empress, though per 
fectly aware of this affair, always treated Nellydoff 



l62 Gallantrjr. 

with the greatest respect in public. This love affair 
was terminated only by the death of Nicholas ; but it 
did not prevent him from numerous other intrigues. 

But in such affairs Prince Paul Esterhazy of Hun- 
gary beat Nicholas. He actually settled pensions 
upon several hundred ladies, all of whom had been 
his favorites. It was said that his Highness was un- 
able to count the number of his conquests. When I 
saw him he was sixty years of age, and I remember 
him as the most richly and splendidly dressed prince 
I had ever seen. 

King Louis, of Bavaria, is one of the most gallant 
monarchs, as he is one of the most accomplished men 
of genius in Europe. The intelligent European in 
this country has had many a hearty laugh at the 
opinion the press of the United States appears to 
entertain of this king. He is not only one of the 
most refined and high-toned gentlemen of the old 
school of manners, but he is also one of the most 
learned men, and one of the cleverest men of genius 
in all Europe. To him art owes more than to any 



Gallantry 163 

other monarcli wIlo lias ever lived. Not only is it 
true that some of the most valuable discoveries and 
improvements in modern arts are due to his patron- 
age, but his greatest service has been felt in the im- 
petus which he has given to the general spirit of art 
throughout the German States. 

In Europe, he has long been called the "artist- 
king." You will find his name referred to with ad- 
miration and praise, in almost every volume of the 
*' Art-Union Journal." In volume X. of 1848, you 
may read this sentence : — '^ Till now, history has had 
no monarch who protected and fostered the arts to 
such an extent as King Louis ; even the entire illus- 
trious house of Medici did not produce in a whole 
century, as much , as the king alone in less than a 
fourth part of that time." 

"When Louis voluntarily descended from the throne, 
lie said : — " It took me about an hour's consideration 
to resign the crown, but it required two days to sepa- 
rate me from the idea of being protector of the fine 
arts." On the occasion of his abdication, the artists 



164 Gallantry. 

united in an address to the king, expressive of their 
profound admiration for his genius, and of their re- 
grets that art had lost the patronage of a throne. 

King Louis is the author of several volumes of poems, 
which are evidence of his natural genius, and of his re- 
fined and elaborately cultivated tastes. His celebrated 
poem entitled South, if he had written no others, would 
have fixed his claim to the right of being considered 
a poet. And it is conceded that Europe has rarely, 
if ever, possessed a monarch so classically learned as he. 

As a king, he was great in the arts, a friend of 
peace, abhorrent of war, and adverse to the tricks 
and stratagems of diplomacy. He was the greatest 
and best king that Bavaria has ever had. It 
would take half a million like his son, the present 
occupant of the throne, to make one like the old king 
himself. There stands the immortal witness of his 
greatness, in that Munich, which he raised from a 
third-class to a first-class capital among the nations of 
Europe. But Louis had really little admiration for 
that bauble, a crown. It was the last thing he took 



Gallantry. 1 65 

pride in. His manners and Ms social tabits were 
rather those of a plain and honest gentleman, than of 
a king. I never knew him to ride either in a car- 
riage or on horseback ; he always went on foot, and 
almost always unattended and alone. He was always 
simply and plainly dressed ; in fact, he never knew 
how to dress. In the matter of old coats, he beat one 
of your own most celebrated editors. He had an old 
green coat which he was not a little proud of, having 
worn it eight years. 

His manners and his habits are more those of a 
scholar and a man of genius, than a king. But he is 
for all this one of the most gallant men in Europe, 
gallant in the best and most poetical sense of the 
word. He worships beauty like one of the ola Trou- 
badours. In fact, his gallantry is a part of his enthu- 
siastic love of art. I have seen him stand in the 
street, in the snow and ice, with his hat off, to con- 
verse with a fair lady. If she was really very beau- 
tiful, he would be quite sure to have her picture 
painted for his gallery. 



i66 Gallantry. 

It is impossible for a coarse, "anpoetical, and merely 
animal nature to comprehend that fine adoration 
"wliicli a genuine feeling of gallantry inspires in the 
breast of a man for a beautiful woman. Indeed, in 
the philosophy of these lower natures there is no 
such thing as love in the world^nothing in man or 
woman to raise them above the beast. "What they 
are incapable of feeling themselves, they find it im- 
possible to comprehend in others, and hence the 
vulgar inuendoes that babble perpetually from the 
mouths of lust and sin. What is called " Platonic 
love," is always sneered at by those who are inca- 
pable of the fine feeling themselves. A dog or an 
ape, whether on two or four legs, find it impossible to 
imagine in others any feeling they are incapable of 
realizing themselves. 

But those who are acquainted with the history of 
the chivalrous origin of gallantry, know that its most 
glorious deeds and greatest sacrifices were inspired 
by a love that was born of the soul, more than of the 
senses. I have already intimated that the TJ. S. is 



Gallantry. 1 67 

too mucli of a mercantile, too busy, and too practical 
a nation, to entertain the old spirit of gallantry, wliich 
requires leisure, and the cultivation of romance ; but 
when I say this, I do not mean that there is not plenty 
of courting in this country, though love, Hke every- 
thing else, is a business here ; that is I mean that the 
gentlemen make love in a truly business-like manner. 
They will manage the heart of a pretty woman as 
easily as they do the stocks on change, and the panics 
which they create in the social markets beat even the 
revolutions and breakdowns in the regions of finance. 
I believe that the American is regarded a dull fellow 
who cannot win the heart of a lady, make a thousand 
dollars, and establish a new bank, with the prospec- 
tive capital of three millions, before breakfast. And 
it may not unfrequently happen that he will lose his 
mistress, his money, and his bank before supper of 
the same day. 

But for all this I believe there is a great deal of genu- 
ine truth and honest love of woman, among the lords 
.of creation in the U. S., and it is none the less honor- 



i68 Gallantry. 

able to woman if it refuses to adorn itself with the 
artificial embellishments of gallantry. It is not a whifc 
the less honest, either, for being of a somewhat Davy 
Crockett style. Love in this country will ^'dive the 
deepest, and come up the dry^st," of any country on 
earth, and it is, therefore, quite as brave, honest, and 
sincere a love, as is found anywhere else ; though it 
often clothes itself in the language of extravagance and 
exaggeration. What I mean is illustrated by a letter 
which is still to be seen (or was a few years ago), in 
one of the public libraries of Paris, in the hand writing 
of your illustrious countryman. Dr. Franklin. The 
letter is in very bad French, but in very good gallantry. 
While the great man was U. S. Minister to Paris, 
he formed a friendship with a very charming lady, 
who was said to be most enthusiastic in her admira- 
tion of him ; and after he had bid her good-bye, pre- 
vious to leaving for the U. S., she wrote him a letter 
entreating him to postpone his departure if possible 
for a day or two. To this letter the Doctor sent the 
following reply : 



Gallantry. 1 69 

"If Dr. Franklin was engaged to go to Paradise at eight 
o'clock in the morning, he would put it off till four in the after- 
noon, for the sake of one hour more in the society of so enchant- 
ing a daughter of earth." 

A French gentleman who called my attention to 
this remarkable note, affected to laugh at its bad 
French, and at the extravagance of the language, but 
I expressed my surprise that he should think anything 
too extravagant in love, at the same time assuring 
him that I had never met a Frenchman in all my life, 
■who would not postpone the idea of Paradise alto- 
gether for the sake of a pretty woman 



Heroines of History. 



Heroines of History, 



#•» 



In attempting to give a definition of strong-minded 
women, I find it necessary to distingnisli between 
just ideas of strength and what is so considered by 
the modem woman's rights movement. 

A very estimable woman, by the name of Mrs. 
Bloomer, obtained the reputation of strong-minded by 
curtailing her sMrts six inches, a compliment which 
certainly excites no envious feeling in my heart ; for 
I am philosophically puzzled to know how cutting six 
inches off a woman's dress can possibly add anything 
to the height of her head. 

There have been a great many wonderfdl discoveries 
in phrenological science of late years, but I have not 
heard that Mr. Fowler has pushed his investigations 



1 74 Heroines of History. 

so far as to be able to affirm that tlie skirt is the seat 
of the mind. At the present rate of scientific disco- 
very, however, it may not be long before such a pro* 
position will be seriously put forth by some distin- 
guished reformer ; but until then we must be permit- 
ted to adhere to the ancient idea of strength, and to 
measure a woman by the old-fashioned intellectual 
standard, before we venture to affirm that she is 
strong-minded. 

One or two hundred women getting together in a 
convention and resolving that they are an abused 
community, and that all the men are great tyrants 
and rascals, proves plainly enough that they — the 
women — are somehow discontented, and that they 
have, perhaps, a certain amount of courage, but I can- 
not see that it proves them to have any remarkable 
strength of mind. 

Eeally strong-minded women are not women of 
words but of deeds, not of resolutions but of actions. 
History does not teach me that they have ever con- 
sumed much time in conventions and in passing reso- 



Heroines of History. 175' 

lutions about their riglits ; but they baye been very 
prompt to assert their rights, and to defend them too* 
and to take the consequences of defeat. 

When Barri de St. Auner, Henry the Fourth's 
Grovernor of Leucate, was on a journey to the Duo 
de Montmorenci, he was seized by the Spanish 
soldiers who were on their way to besiege that town, 
and who rejoiced that, haying the Goyernor in their 
possession, the gates of the place would readily be 
opened to them ; but Constantia de Gecelli, the goy- 
ernor's wife, at once assembled the garrison and put 
herself so resolutely at their head, pike in hand, that 
she inspired the weakest with courage, and the besie- 
gers were repulsed whereyer they presented them- 
selyes. Shame, and their great loss, haying rendered 
the besiegers desperate, they sent a message to this 
heroic woman, telling her if she did not yield the 
City they would hang the Goyernor, her husband. 
She replied with tears in her eyes, " I haye riches in 
V bundance, I haye offered them and do still offer 
tiiem all for his ransom, but I would not ignomi- 



176 Heroines of History. 

nioiisly purchase a life wMch lie would reproacli me 
with, and whicli lie would be ashamed to enjoy. I will 
not dishonor him by treason against my king and 
country." 

The soldiers made another unsuccessful attack, and 
then savagely put her husband to death, and raised 
the siege. Henry IV. afterwards sent this lady the 
brevet of Grovernor of Leucate with the reversion for 
her son. 

That, now, is the example of a real strong-minded 
woman, and history is full of such examples, which 
indicate the courage and intellect of woman, and her 
right to claim equality with the harder sex whenever 
Heaven has imparted to her the gift of genius. I 
can hardly see how it is possible that any woman of 
true genius should ever feel the necessity of calling 
together conventions for the purpose of resolving 
that she is abused. One woman going forth in the 
independence and power of self-rehant strength to 
assert her own individuality, and to defend, with 
whatever means God has given her, her right to a 



Heroines of Flistory. 177 

just portion of the earth's privileges, will io more 

than a million of convention- women to make herself 

known and felt in the world. There is such a great 

difference between strength of mind and strength of 

tongue ! Men only laugh at a convention of scolds, 

and pay no more attention to what they say than to 

the chattering of a flock of blackbirds ; but they will 

gaze with admiration and respect on a woman who 

sets herself to a brave and manly task, and actually 

accomplishes a heroic deed. Genius has no sex. 

Look back upon the page of history, and see how 

clearly this fact is proved. When women attack and 

defend fortifications, when they command armies and 

obtain victories, what do you call it? That is no 

drawing-room business. If a Jean de Montfort can 

do a better business at defending her Duchy of 

Bretagne, with sword in hand, than any man of her 

day, why, then, let her fight. You surely would not 

call her off to the business of frying pancakes and 

brushing down cobwebs. Let woman, like man, do 

that for which nature has best fitted her. Look at 

8 ''<- 



lyS Heroines of History. 

Margaret of Anjon, the active and intrepid soldiei 
and general, whose genius supported for a long time 
a feeble husband, taught him how to conquer, 
replaced him upon a throne from which he had 
fallen, twice reheved him from prison, and, though 
oppressed by fortune and by rebels, did not bend 
u.ntil after she had decided in person twelve battles! 
What have you to say about the '' sphere" of such a 
woman as that? Would you take her from her 
career of glory on the battle-field and apprentice her 
to the business of dress-making? And, with such an 
example before you, will you pause to dispute about 
the intellect of woman ? 

Look again at Jane of Belleville, widow of Mons. 
de Chisson, who was beheaded at Paris on the suspi- 
cion of carrying on a correspondence with England 
and the Count de Montfort. Filled with despair at 
the death of her husband, and exasperated at the 
shame heaped upon his name, she sent her son 
secretly to London, and when she was assured -^hat 
he was safe, she sold her jewels, fitted. out three ships^ 



Heroines of History. 179 

and put to sea to revenge the death, of her husband. 
She made several successful descents upon Nor- 
mandy, and the inhabitants of that province were 
forced to be idle spectators whilst their villages were 
in a blaze at the hand of one of the handsomest 
women in Europe, who, with a sword in one hand 
and a torch in the other, urged on the carnage, and 
directed all the horrors of the war. 

There can be no doubt of woman's intellect and 
woman's power in that affair ; but we shall be told 
that such examples are almost solitary cases. No, 
they are not. It will puzzle any man to find in the 
pages of history as many instances of real and start- 
ling heroism in his sex as I could hunt up in mine. 
There have been whole eras in which the heroism of 
woman shone out with a general lustre which made it 
the rule and not the exception of her character. 
Such was particularly the case in the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries, especially in Hungary and in the 
islands of the Archipelago and the Mediterranean, 
when they were invaded by the Turks, 



i8o Heroines of History. 

Once, indeed, for tlie space of fonr hundred years, 
the heroism of woman was a potential power in 
Europe, showing itself in the midst of convulsions 
and great revolutions. 

Of course all well-read people (and almost every- 
body in this country is well-read) have some general 
knowledge of the heroic history of the women of 
Cappadocia, called the Amazons : and although 
much that ancient history records of them may be 
fabulous, yet enough is proved to show that the men 
of that day played an entirely subordinate part both 
in the halls of legislation and the strife of the battle- 
field. Old Priam is made to say : — 

" In Phrygia once were gallant armies known. 
And I to join them raised the Trojan horse : 
Against the manhke Amazons we stood, 
And Sanger's stream ran purple with their blood." 

According to Diodorus, the Amazons were regular 
woman's rights women ; for they made laws by which 
the women were enjoined to go to the wars, and the 
men were kept at home in a servile state, spinning 



Heroines of History. i8i 

wool and doing all manner of honseliold work. ISTc 
woman was allowed to marry till she had slain at 
least one enemy on the battle-field. 

The right breasts of all the female children were 
seared with a hot iron, in order to give the freest use 
of the right arm in wielding the sword or in shooting 
arrows ; and they even debilitated the arms and thighs 
of the male children, that they might be rendered un- 
fit for war. That, I should say, was carrying the 
woman's rights question to an extent that ought to 
satisfy even our modern agitators. But in justice to 
these terrible Amazon women, it must be confessed 
that the world has never known better and braver 
warriors than they. 

And at a much later day the habits and manners of 
chivalry, by bringing great enterprises, bold adven- 
tures, and extravagant heroism into fashion, inspired 
the women with the same wild taste. In consequence 
of the prevailing fashion, fine ladies were seen in the 
midst of camps and armies. They gave up the soft 
and tender passion and delicate offices of their sex, 



i82 Heroines of History. 

for tlie toilsome occupations of war. During the 
Crusades, wHle animated by tlie double entliusiasm 
of religion and valor, they often performed the most 
incredible exploits on tbe field of battle, and died with 
arms in their bands by the side of their lovers. 

The heroism of the women of Suli was scarcely 
eclipsed by that of the noble Spartans who fell in the 
pass of Thermopylae. They bore all the brunt of the 
terrible attacks of Ali Pacha, shedding their dearest 
blood in defence of their native fastnesses, defying 
tyranny, and setting an example of a patriotism which 
stands even with the, highest monument which the 
heroism of man ever raised to his fame. All was a 
festival of death behind the terrible and resistless 
inarch where the Suliot women brandished the wea- 
pons of war. 

The army of the Arabian chief Kalad was accom- 
panied by a phalanx of women, who performed all 
the duties of cavalry, and formed a distinguished por- 
tion of the army. I have read that the present king 
of Siam has a chosen band of female warriors formed 



Heroines of History. 183 

of the most beautiful women of his land. The world 
is familiar with the heroism of the Prefect Grregory's 
daughter, who repulsed the immense and powerful 
army of Abdallah ; and we all remember Joan of 
Arc, whose cruel death will eyer be a stain on the 
escutcheon of England. 

The Countess of St. Belmont used to take the 
field with her husband and fight by his side. She 
sent several Spanish prisoners which she took to 
Marshal Tenonieres, and at home this beautiful lady 
was all affability and sweetness, and devoted herself 
to study and to acts of piety. The history of the 
Countess of Belmont always reminds me of some 
exquisite lines of Moore : 

" Yet there was light around her brow, 
A holiness in those bright eyes, 
Which showed, though wandering earthward now, 
Her spirit's home was in the skies. 
Yes, for a spirit pure as hers, 
Is always pure, e'en while it errs, 
As sunshine broken in the rill, 
Though turned astray, is sunshine stilL" 



184 Heroines of History. 

Portia, the beautiful daughter of Cato of Utica, was 
not only an adept in philosophy, but she gave proofs 
of the highest spirit of heroism. 

When Brutus, her husband, was preparing for the 
assassination of Caesar, she shrewdly guessed that some 
great and dangerous enterprise was on his mind, but 
Brutus would not trust her with the secret ; and she 
resolutely cut herself with a knife to show by con- 
stancy and patience in suffering pain, that she was 
capable of heroic deeds, and fit to be trusted with 
desperate secrets. When Brutus saw this, he lifted 
up his hands to heaven, and begged the assistance of 
the Gods, that he might live to be a husband worthy 
of such a wife as Portia, and he communicated to 
her the plan for killing Caesar ; and when she heard 
that Brutus had been taken, and had killed himself, 
she heroically followed his example, and died by 
swallowing burning coals. 

The Countess of Derby was one of the best heroines 
of English History. In that memorable struggle be- 
tween the House of Stuart and the Parliament, she 



Heroines of History. 183 

was the last person in tlie British dominions who con 
sented to yield. Collecting all her vassals in Latham 
castle, she defended it with the greatest bravery, after 
the heart of every male hero had given out. 

When Eobert, Duke of Normandy, was wounded 
by a poisoned arrow, the physicians declared that 
nothing could save him but to have the wound sucked 
by some one, whose life would surely fall a sacrifice ; 
the Duke disdained to save his own life by hazai ding 
that of another, — ^but Sibilla, his wife, performed the 
fatal office, and died to save her husband. 

Thus all history is full of startling examples of 
female heroism, which prove that woman's heart is 
made of as stout a stuff, and of as brave a mettle as 
that which beats within the ribs of the coarser sex. 

And if we were permitted to descend from this 
high plane of public history, into the private homes 
of the world, in which sex, think you, should we 
there find the purest spirit of heroism ? Who suffers 
sorrow and pain with the most heroism of heart ? 
Wlio in the midst of poverty, neglect, and crushing 



i86 Heroines of History. 

despair, holds on most brayely througli tlie terrible 
struggle, and never yields eyen to the fearful demands 
of necessity, until death wrests the last weapon of 
defence from her hands ! Ah, if all this unwritten 
heroism of woman could be brought to the light, eyen 
man himself would cast his proud wreath of fame at 
her feet I 

The discovery of America is due to the far-seeing 
sagacity and patronage of a woman. Queen Isabella 
of Aragon ; for when the king and his court had re- 
fused with scorn the petition of Columbus, the great 
discoverer had recourse to the queen, who furnished 
him with the means and aid, which resulted in hi& 
triumphant success. 

Isabella united all the graces and feminine qualities 
of the woman with the soul and daring of a hero, the 
profound and artful address of a politician, the exten- 
sive views of a legislator, and the courage of a 
conqueror. She attended the council chamber, she 
mounted on horseback and paraded the ranks of the 
army, animating them to battle and conquest ; while 



Heroines of History. 187 

her name appears jointly witli that of Ferdinand in 
all public acts, and she was really the mind of tha 
throne and the hero of the battle-field. 

Not only have women distinguished themselves as 
warriors, but they have shone as transcendent stars 
in the firmament of state. As diplomatists and poli- 
ticians, many women have shown that they were 
intellectually equal to the wisest men. What mon- 
arch of her day can boast of greater intellectual powers 
than Semiramis ? though with sorrow it must be con- 
fessed that she possessed all the vices as well as the 
intellect of a male monarch. She prevailed upon her 
infatuated husband to invest her with the sovereignty 
for the space of five days — an interregnum which she 
commenced by putting him to death. History also 
accuses her of having afterwards selected her favorites 
in succession from the flower of the army, putting 
them afterwards to death, lest they should be living 
witnesses of her crimes. We have good reason to be 
shocked at the terrible deeds of this mighty woman ; 
and her example has been adduced to prove that wo- 



i88 Heroines of History. 

men cannot hold power witliout abusing it. But 
with all her crimes Semiramis was far less wicked 
than hundreds of male monarchs, who have murdered 
their wives, and even their own children, when they 
stood in the way of ambition or their passions. 

What monarch of ancient times had a more splen- 
did reign than Zenobia, queen of Palmyra and the 
East? Her intellect, her sagacity, and her courage 
made her the peer of any male sovereign of her time. 
But alas ! as hundreds of crowned men have done, she 
sullied all this by an act of cowardice for which she 
ought never to be forgiven, by throwing the blame 
of her obstinate resistance to the Eomans upon her 
prime minister, Longinus, who was in consequence 
immediately borne away to death by Aurelian. But, 
as Gribbon well writes, "the fame of this great man 
will survive that of the queen who betrayed him." 

In the list of great female sovereigns few have been 
more celebrated than Queen Elizabeth; and what 
man has ever sat on the proud English throne who 
was wiser in diplomacy, or firmer in rule than she? 



Heroines of History. 189 

Site has been called " England's most gigantic mon- 
arcli," a thing which, may be said without shame to 
any king who ever lived. We speak this of her 
intellect alone, for we are incapable of feeling any 
admiration for the heart of Elizabeth. Her dissimu- 
lation, her jealousy, and her ungenerous treatment 
of Mary, have thrown a black shadow upon her heart 
which the sun of time can never lift. 

What does history say of the intellect, the genius, the 
diplomatic skill of Catharine II., Empress of Eussia ? 
What king in her day was a match for her ? She was 
bold, grasping, ambitious, and intellectually powerfiil 
enough to make half a dozen of such male monarchs 
as are now seated upon the thrones of the world. 

And we may say as much of Christina of Sweden, 

who excelled in every masculine power. Indeed this 

giantess ungraciously despised everything that was 

feminine. On one occasion she dismissed her female 

attendants, and laid aside the garb as well as the 

manners of her sex, saying: "I would become a 

man ; yet I do not love men because they are men, 
13 



190 Heroines of History. 

but because they are not women." Shg was called 
the "female Samson." Olympias, the consort of 
Philip of Macedon, and mother of Alexander, was 
scarcely less gifted or less a hero in her passions 
and power ; and we might add a long list of women 
who have been intellectually more than a match for 
the cunningest man-monarchs of their day. 

I do not by any means hold up these gigantic women 
as models of character ; but then, bad as they were, 
they were inj&nitely better than the general run of the 
male rulers of those days. It is only because they 
were women, that history has singled out the bad of 
their lives, and refuses to dwell upon the great and 
brave deeds which place them equally by the side of 
the greatest heroes or monarchs of the harder sex. 
Let historical justice be done to the intellect of woman, 
and I am content to leave the history of her heart and 
moral life, without comment, to defend itself by con- 
trast with that of the other sex. 

It is true, that there is hardly a great or heroic 
woman of history, whose name has escaped the con* 



Heroines of History. 191 

tagion of scandal. Queen Elizabeth, Mary of Scot- 
land, Margaret of Anjou, Catliarine of Eussia, Chris- 
tina of Sweden, the Empress Josephine, even poor 
Joan of Arc, and almost every great woman of anti- 
quity, have shared a common fate in this particular, 
while great men have passed measurably unscathed 
because, I suppose, the world had no right to expect 
any degree of morality in the life of a great man. 
But woman — ah ! she must be a saint, even while she 
hurls a tyrant from his throne, and does the rough 
"work of war and revolution. Well, so she should be, 
and thus leave to man the entire monopoly of all the 
sin of the world ! 

While the male historian seeks for faults in the 
lives ^of the great female characters of history, let me 
ask him where, on his side of the house, he can point 
to such illustrious examples of virtue and heroism as 
are seen in the history of Lucretia and the Princess 
Octavia? But though it has to be admitted that 
woman has distinguished herself on the battle-field 
and in the Senate, it has been said that she has never 



192 Heroines of History. 

risen anything near to an equality with, man in the; 
department of science and literature. 

That woman's mind, like her physiqne, is generally 
less coarse, and strong, and heavy than that of man, 
must be admitted ; but what she lacks in strength she 
gains in speed, and she has shown an aptness for 
learning, and eyen a capacity for profound study, 
which commanded the admiration of the heaviest 
philosophers of the other sex. 

Cornelia, the mother of the Grracchi, was one of the 
most learned persons in the study of the sciences in 
all Eome, and her public lectures on philosophy were 
listened to by all the wise men of her time. 

What man in the eighteenth century was more 
classically learned than Madame Dacier? She not 
only translated Homer, and several other of the Greek 
and Latin classics, but she assisted her husband in the 
translation of Plutarch's Lives, and performed deeds 
of scholarship which called forth the admiration of 
the learned world. 

The most accomplished linguist of the last century, 



Heroines of History. 193 ! 

was a woman by the name of Elizabeth Carter. She j 

not only translated works from the Greek, Latin, and I 

Hebrew, but she spoke with great fluency and ease i 

French, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian, German, and i 

Spanish. Helena Lucretia Canaro was the most 

learned person in Yenice, in her time. She was ad- | 

mitted to the University at Eome, where she had the 

title of " humble" given to her, in consequence of her j 

i 

quiet devotion to study; and she had a doctor's j 

degree conferred upon her at Padua. All who passed ] 

through Yenice were more solicitous to see her than I 

any of the curiosities of that superb old city. :i 

Jane of Aragon was so celebrated for her learning, ] 

wit, beauty, and courage, that a collection of poems j 

in her praise was published at Yenice, in the Latin, '\ 

Greek, Italian, French, Spanish, Sclavonic, Polish, ] 

Hungarian, Hebrew, and Chaldean languages. The • 

Marchioness of Chatelet, Ann Clifford, Sophonisba, 

daughter of Asdrubal of Carthage, and hundreds of \ 

others who might be named, were scarcely less gifted 1 

in the circles of science and learning. Some of the 

9 

I 

I 



194 Heroines of History. 

most celebrated authors of France liaYL been women 
What male author of her time, in France, presumed to 
stand by the side of Madame de Stael for vigor and 
strength of intellect ? And Madame de Genlis was 
really the author of more valuable and successful 
works of literature than all the male authors of France, 
in her time, put together. And the most powerful 
writer of France, at this day, is a woman — George 
Sand. The genius and mental powers of Madame 
Eoland gave her a place among the highest minds of 
France. Among the distinguished authors of even 
proud England, Lady Montague holds a distinguished 
place. She stood at the head of the literary wits of 
her day ; and even Pope and Horace Walpole were 
not averse to admitting her " equality " of intellect. 
It was this gifted lady who had the immortal honor 
of introducing inoculation into England, having first 
heroically tried its efficacy on her own child. To skip 
over a long list of distinguished literary women of 
England, who are among the best authors that country 
has produced, I may mention that the most consider- 



Heroines of History. 195' 

able Englisli autlior of the present day has a rival in 
the genins of his own wife — ^a thing which very few 
men can brook, and Sir Edward Bnlwer is by no 
means an exception to this vanity of his sex ; for I 
blush to say that he has not even allowed his wife's 
good fame to remain undisturbed. 

But then, that is a thing which has rarely ever been 
allowed to a woman of genius who has devoted her 
pen to the public service, or mingled in the popular 
tumults of the world. It was not allowed to Madame 
de Stael, Madame de Grenlis, Lady Montague, any 
more than it was allowed to that greatest ornament of 
ancient literature, the gifted and beautiful Aspasia, 
who was called the ^'mistress of Pericles." 

But there is a class of heroines who have been more 
powerful in the world than the mighty women of the 
sword or of the pen. I mean those who have united 
great personal beauty with rare intellectual powers ! 
In such women there is a power stronger than strength. 
The annals of Greece and Eome, from the memorable 
days of Trc.y, down to the Eoman age, furnish nothing 



196 Heroines of History. 

more remarkable than the omnipotent sway of female 
genius and beauty in the affairs of the world. The 
first revolution in which kingly power was destroyed 
was a woman's deed. And the next revolution in 
which plebeians were elevated to the consulship was 
also the work of woman. 

It was the beauty and genius of Aspasia that caused 
the famous war of the Peloponnesus, and conducted 
Athens to its most refined epoch. It was the power 
of female intellect and beauty that drove into banish- 
ment such great men as Aristotle and Euripides, at a 
time when their genius was the chief glory of their 
country. Indeed there has been no age of history yet, 
when the combined power of intellect and beauty in 
a woman has not made her greater than either diplo- 
macy or the sword. 

One of the most remarkable of this type of heroines 
was Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. To the great beauty 
and gracefulness of her person, Cleopatra added the 
attractions of wit, affable manners, and high mental 
ax3quirements. Amid the pleasures and avocations of 



Heroines of History. 197 

a court, slie ceased not to ciiltiyate learning ; and, in 
addressing ambassadors of different languages, slie 
astonished them with the correctness and fluency of 
her diction. If you say of this great woman, that it 
was by ambition and passion that she finally lost her 
power and her life, I shall ask you of how many 
thousands of male monarchs has the same thing been 
more than true ? 

Cleopatra was born in troublesome times, and drew 
her first breath in the contagion of a licentious court ; 
while in tender years, she was raised to the seducing 
eminence of a throne, and surrounded by a crowd of 
flatterers, who neither dared to reprove, nor desired 
to correct, the increasing follies of her conduct. 

As a beauty, she was admired; as a queen, she was 
addressed with adulation ; and possessing the means 
of indulgence, she yielded to pleasure in all its various 
forms. 

I do not offer one excuse for her faults. I only 
demand that a great woman should be judged by the 
same rules by which a great man is j udged. If the lords 



198 Heroines of History. 

of creation demur to this, I shall challenge thei 1 to 
show me by what divine right they are justified in a 
career of pleasure which should be forbidden to 
woman ! 

The mighty Thermatis, another Queen of Egypt, 
was made quite as powerful by her beauty and intel- 
lect, as Cleopatra. In fact, in almost every ancient 
court, the beauty and wit of women was the secret but 
potent power which controlled the councils of diplo- 
macy and the state. It was the power behind the 
throne which was greater than the throne itself. The 
lady in Hudibras did not exceed the truth when she 
gave the following humorous description of her 
powers : — 

" We manage things of greatesc weight, 
In all the world's affairs of state ; 
We make and execute the laws. 
Can judge the judges and the cause ; 
We rule in every public meeting, 
And make men do what we judge fitting. 
Are magistrates in aU great towns, 
Where men do nothing, hut wear gowns ! 



Heroines of History. 199 

"We are your guardians, that increase 
Or waste your fortunes as we please ,* 
And as you humor us, can deal 
In all your matters, ill or well." 



And tills is as true of modern as of ancient courts. 
Eousseau asserts tliat " all great revolutions were owing 
to women." The French, revolution, the last great 
and stirring event upon which the world looks back, 
arose, as Burke ill-naturedly expresses it, *' amidst the 
yells and violence of women." We accept the com- 
pliment which Burke here pays to the power of woman, 
and attribute the coarseness of his language to the 
bitter repugnance which every Englishman of that day 
had to everything that was French. 

No, Mr. Burke, it was not by ^' yells and violence" 
that the great women of France helped on that mighty 
revolution — it was by the combined power of intellect 
and beauty. Nor will women who get together in 
conventions for the purpose of berating men, ever 
accomplish anything. They can affect legislation only 
by quiet and judicious counsel, with such means aa 



200 Heroines of History. 



1 



control tlie judgment and tlie lieart of legislators. 
And the experience of the world has pretty well 
proved that a man's judgment is pretty easily con- 
trolled when hi^ heart is once persuaded. 

These convention women, it is to be hoped, would 
make good wives and mothers, if they should evei 
turn their thoughts in that direction ; but they cer- 
tainly are very poor politicians. 

They may rest assured, too, that they will never 
get the right to vote by clamorously demanding it in 
public. No, the wise and cunning of my sex all 
know that, in politics, they must not even let the right 
hand know what the left hand doeth. And what do 
I care who carries the votes to the box, if I am allowed 
to say how the voting shall be done ? The will of 
every intellectual and adroit woman does go to the 

ballot-box, with a voice a hundred fold more potential 

-I 

than if she rushed into the coarse crowd to carry it 
there herself. In such a contact the mass of women 
would only lose the delicacy and refinement which 
now constitute their only charm, without getting any 



Heroines of History. 201 

benefit for the terrible sacrifice. The kitclien and the 
parlor, and all the sacred precincts of home, would be 
immeasurably impaired, while there would be no gain 
whatever to the councils of the state. If a woman is 
qualified to be a happy wife and a good mother, she 
need never look with envy upon the more gifted 
woman of genius, whose mental powers, by fitting her 
for the stormy arena of politics, may have unfitted her 
for the quiet walks of domestic life. In the woman 
of rare mental endowments, there may be a necessity 
in her own nature, forcing her into a field of action 
altogether different in its sphere from the duties usually 
allotted to woman. Where this is the case, she must 
obey her destiny ; but the woman who has only those 
humbler charms which fit her to be the light and the 
presiding goddess of the beautifiil circle of ^' home," 
is really to be envied by her more gifted sister whose 
powers tempt her out upon the turbulent sea of poli- 
tics and diplomacy. 

But, alas! woman's lot in this sphere of home is too 

often a sad and thankless one. It is demanded of her 

9^ 



202 Heroines of History. 

that slie make a lioine wlietlier her husband provides 
the means or not, and it must be a happy one, though 
his temper is as savage as that of a tiger. 

And how many thousands of women do make a 
home, and, for their children, a happy one too, when 
spendthrift husbands have deprived them of all 
resources but their own industry and skill ? and how 
many millions of the " lords of creation " really live on 
the skill and industry of their wives ? The greatest 
tragic actress that ever lived, Maria Arne, was only 
tempted on to the stage after the extravagance of her 
husband, Theophilus Gibber, had left her no other 
resources. Her debut was so much admired, that hei 
salary was voluntarily doubled after the first night. 
When Garrick was made acquainted with the circu.m- 
stances of this worthy lady's death, he exclaimed, 
" Then Tragedy has expired." 

Laura Barri, a celebrated Italian lady, was a scarcely 
less illustrious example of the same thing. She began 
to read lectures on natural philosophy, and continued 
the practice until she died. Her singular acquire- 



Heroines of History. 203 

ments procured her tlie honorable title of Doctor of 
Philosophy. 

History is full of such examples. But what should 
most command our admiration is that unwritten 
page of history where millions of heroic women have 
toiled on through disease, and poverty, and desertion, 
too brave to give up, even under the most terrible 
burdens, and too proud to let the world see the oceans 
of tears they shed in secret. While discouraged man, 
inglorious, flies to the gaming table, or seeks oblivion 
in the bottle, his heroic wife sits, almost the night 
through, sewing by the dim light of a candle, to earn 
the wherewith for to-morrow's breakfast ! She is the 
only heart in that household which does not yield to 
despair — the only prop which does not break under 
the pitiless weight oi misfortune ! 

What do men mean when they call woman the 
weaker sex? Not, surely, that she is less strong and 
brave of heart and purpose to meet the tidal shocks 
of life ! Not that she is not every whit the peer of 
man in all the elements of heroism and genuine 



204 Heroines of History. 

nobility of soul ! That masculine pMlosopliy winch 
regards and would treat woman as an inferior being, 
is not only an insult to that God wlio created lier as 
the equal companion of man, but it is contradicted by 
every stage of history and experience. Her excel- 
lence may be generally displayed in a less ostentatious 
field than man's, but still the idea of perfect equality 
is not impaired on that account. 

Nor does this idea of woman's equality destroy the 
idea that the woman who is a wife should study to 
reflect the opinions and the honor of her husband, 
provided he is a man who has opinions and honor to 
be reflected. I fully endorse the sentiment of Plutarch, 
that '^ a wife should be as a mirror to represent her 
husband," provided he is such a husband as an honor- 
able woman could justly represent. 

Erasmus said, "As a looking-glass, if it be a true 
one, faithfully represents the face of him that looks 
in it, so a wife ought to fashion herself to the affection 
of her husband, not to be cheerful when he is sad, nor 
sad when he is cheerful." 



Heroines of History. 203 

Sucli^ it is but just to confess, liave also been the 
sentiments of tlie greatest of women wlio have been 
wives and mothers. The gifted and beautiful Cor- 
nelia, mother of the Gracchi, whom some frivolous 
companions would have enticed from home and its 
'duties, said, pointing to her children, "These are my 
jewels, my pastime, my opera, my amusements." 
When the wife of Philo, the father of philosophy, was 
asked why she wore no gold, she made tms reply, 
that she thought her "husband's virtues sufficient orna- 
ments." And it was the boast of the wife of Leonidas, 
that "her countrywomen alone could produce men." 
Thus in the best type of the female character, there 
is a firmness which does not exclude delicacy, and a 

softness which does not imply weakness. 
14 



Comic Aspect of LovEc 



Comic Aspect of Love. 



My subject to-niglit is the comic aspect of love, 
No doubt most of you have had some little experi- 
ence, at least in the sentimental and sighing side of 
the tender passion ; and what I propose to do is to 
give you the humorous or comic side. Perhaps I 
oug^-*- to begin by begging pardon of the ladies for 
treating so sacred a thing as love in a comic way, or 
for turning the ludicrous side of so charming a 
thing as they find love to be, to the gaze of men — ^but 
I wish to premise that I shall not so treat sensible or 
rational love. 

Of that beautiful feeling, less warm than passion, 
yet more tender than friendship, I shall not for a 
moment speak irreverently ; of that pure disinterested 



210 Comic Aspect of Love. 

affection — as cliarming as it is reasonable, wMcli one 
sex feels for the other, I cannot speak lightly. But 
there is a certain romantic senseless kind of love, 
such as poets sometimes celebrate, and men and 
women feign, which is a legitimate target for ridicule. 
This kind of love is fanciful and foolish ; it is not 
the offspring of the heart, but of the imagination. 1 
know that generous deeds and contempt of death 
have sometimes covered this folly with a veil. The 
arts have twined for it a fantastic wreath, and the 
Muses have decked it with the sweetest flowers ; but; 
this makes it none the less ridiculous nor dangerous- 
Love of this romantic sort is an abstraction much too 
light and subtle to sustain a tangible existence in the 
midst of the jostling relations of this busy world. It 
is a mere bubble thrown to the surface by the passions 
and fancies of men, and soon breaks by contact with 
the hard facts of daily life. It is a thing which bears 
but little handling. 

The German Wieland, who was a great disciple of 
Love, was of opinion that " its metaphysical effects 



Comic Aspect of Love. 211 

began with tlie first sigh, and ended with the first 
kiss !" Plato was not far out of the way when he 
called it *^ a great devil ;" and the man or woman 
who is really possessed of it, will find it a very hard 
one to cast out. * 

There is a curious story extant in the old chroni- 
cles, that when the charms of a fair damsel had made 
Alexander pause in his career of ambition, his tutor 
and guardian, Aristotle, endeavored to arouse the 
spirit of the hero, by ridiculing the weakness of 
love ; and this was so far effectual as to cause the 
great monarch to absent himself from his fair enchan- 
tress. She bewailed her fate for some time in soli- 
tude, and when she could endure the suspense no 
longer, forced her way into the presence of her lord. 
Her beauty again smiled away the dreams of glory 
from his mind, and he accused Aristotle of having 
been the cause of his absence. The fair lady was 
enraged that the philosopher should thus interfere 
with her happiness, and she assured Alexander that 
she would give him proof that Aristotle had no right 



212 Comic Aspect of Love. 

to giye sucli advice, as lie himself was equally suscep 
tible to the charms of beauty. Accordingly the 
next morning she repaired to the lawn before 
AristxDtle's chamber, and as she approached the 
casement, she broke the stillness of the air by 
chanting a love-ditty, the wild notes of which 
charmed the philosopher from his studies. He 
stole to the window, and saw a form fairer than 
any image which even his own genius had invented. 
Her face was unveiled, and her tresses strayed down 
her neck, while her dress, like the drapery of an 
ancient statue, displayed the elegance of her form. 
She loitered about the place under pretence of pluck- 
ing a branch of myrtle to wreathe round her brow. 

When she at length perceived that Aristotle eagerly 
watched her, she stole underneath the casement, and 
in a voice full of emotion, sang that she was riveted 
to the spot by love. Aristotle drank in the delicious 
sounds, and her beauty appeared to him more resplen- 
dent than ever. Keason faintly whispered that he 
was not born to be beloved, for his hair was now 



Comic Aspect of Love. 213 

^Mte witli age, and Ms foreliead wrinkled with care ; 
but the lady carelessly passed close to his window, 
and in his admiration he caught the floating folds of 
her robe. She affected anger, and he then avowed 
his love. She listened to his confession with an 
artful surprise of manner, which fanned still more 
the flame of his heart, and then answered him with 
reproaches for having sought to withdraw from her 
the love of Alexander. The philosopher swore that 
he would again bring his pupil to her feet, if she 
would confer some sign of favor upon himself. She 
feigned an intention of complying, but declared that 
he must first indulge her in a foolish whim which 
long had distracted her fancy, and this was an almost 
insane wish to ride upon the back of a wise man. 
He was by this time so intoxicated with her beauty, 
that he could deny her nothing, and he immediately 
threw himself on his hands and knees, and she at 
once sat upon his back and urged him forward. In 
a minute they reached the terrace under the royal 
windows, and the King had a fair view of the singu- 



214 Comic Aspect of Love. 

lar spectacle. A peal of laugliter from tlie windows 
awoke tlie pMlosopher to a sense of Hs position, and 
wlien lie saw Ms pnpil, lie owned tliat youth, might 
well yield to love, wlien it liad power to break even 
the frost of age. 

But there is another and more autlientic piece of 
history in which, a gentle maiden was the liorse wh.o 
bore her lover upon lier back. Eginliart, wh.o was 
chaplain and secretary to tlie Emperor Charlemagne, 
secretly won the love of Emma, the beautiful daugh- 
ter of Ms majesty. Once these lovers sat up the 
whole night, not taking due note of time, until the 
grey light of morning peeped in upon them. His 
young reverence, the chaplain, then perceived to his 
horror, that during the night there had been a great 
fall of snow. Now what was to be done? The 
traces of his footsteps would discover the mystery and 
make it certain that a man had left the apartments of 
the princess. But did you ever hear of a woman's 
wits forsaking her at such a critical moment? The 
fair Emma's did not forsake her, for she took her 



Comic Aspect of Love. 215 

lover upon her shoulders, and carried Mm through 
the court-yard, which left in the tell-tale snow only 
the harmless print of a woman's foot. But, alas ! as 
the course of true love never did run smooth, the 
Emperor Charlemagne being up at a very early 
hour, discovered his daughter wading through the 
snow, with that unique burden on her back. He 
said nothing to the young lovers, but the next day 
summoned his council, and made the affair known to 
them, asking what -should be done. All the minis- 
ters agreed that summary punishment should be 
visited upon the guilty chaplain. "No," said the 
Emperor ; " it is easier for me to raise Eginhart to a 
situation in which he will be worthy of my daughter, 
than to publish her imprudence." He then sum- 
moned the culprit before the council, and said to him, 
*' To reward your long services, I will give you my 
daughter, who carried you upon her back." This 
story I believe to be as well authenticated as any 
piece of history of its age, and it derives an extra 
charm from the lady who thus turned porter for her 



2i6 Comic Aspect of Love. 

love being the young and beautifdl daughter of so 
great an emperor. Indeed it is into what are called 
the higher and more refined circles that you have to 
look for the best specimens of sentimental love. 

Of the refinements of love, the great mass of men 
can know nothing. The truth is, that sentimental 
love is so much a matter of the imagination, that the 
uncultivated have no natural field for its display. In 
America, you can hardly realize the full force of this 
truth, because the distinctions of class are happily 
nearly obliterated. Here intellectual culture seems to 
be about equally divided among all classes. I sup- 
pose it is not singular in this country to find the 
poorest cobbler, whose little shanty is next to the 
proud mansion of some millionaire, a man of really 
more mental attainments than his rich and haughty 
neighbor; in which case the millionaire will do 
well to look to it, that the cobbler does not make 
love to his wife ; and if he does, nobody need care 
much, for the millionaire will be quite sure to reci* 
procate, 



Comic Aspect of Love. 217 

The great statute, " tit-for-tat," is, I believe, equally 
tlie law of all nations ; besides, love is a great leveller 
of distinctions, and it is in this levelling mission that 
it performs some of its most ridiculous antics. When 
a rich man's daughter runs off with her father's 
coachman, as occasionally happens, the whole country 
is in a roar of laughter about it. There is an innate, 
popular perception of the ridiculousness of such a 
thing ; not that the love in itself is ridiculous, but 
everybody sees and feels that in such cases it is mis* 
placed and grotesque. 

Every one perceives that the woman's heart has 

taken the bit in its mouth, and run away with her 

brains. But, as comedy is often nearly allied to 

tragedy, so sorrow is sure to come as soon as the 

little honeymoon is over. This romantic love cannot 

flourish in the soil of poverty and want. Indeed, all 

the stimulants which pride and luxury can administer 

to it, can hardly keep it alive. The rich miss who 

runs away with a man far beneath her in education 

and refinement, must inevitably awake, after a brief 

10 



21 8 Coniic Aspect of Love. 

dream, to a state of things wMcli liaye made lier unfor- 
tunate for life; and lie, poor man, will not be les3 
wretclied, nnless she has brought him sufficient money 
to give him leisure and opportunity to indulge his 
fancies with that society which is on a level with his 
own tastes and education. 

So do you not perceive, now, that the eagerness of 
the sentimental lover, and the number of hours con- 
sumed in courtship, become indeed ridiculous when 
measured with the duration of his love? How 
earnest and incessant is the sportsman's pursuit of 
game — ^but soon evening comes on, the field is won, 
and all the enthusiasm ends in an apoplectic snore 
in the big arm-chair ! Even so it is with many a 
lover ; we imagined at first that it was impossible his 
affection should ever cloy — alas ! the heart that seemed 
to be all on fire, reveals now only the cinders of 
a dying passion ! 

Novelty is a great gloss of love, but it is a varnish 
that soon wears off in the contact of constant associa- 
tions. 



Comic Aspect of Love. 219 

Dean Swift Immorously says that " married people, 
for being so closely united, are bat tlie apter to cease 
loving, as knots, tlie harder they are pulled, break 
the sooner." I am afraid that the experience of too 
many will confirm this philosophy. I have often 
wondered why some ingenious Yankee has not disco- 
vered some famous salt, to keep the sweets of matri- 
mony from cloying. If you could only salt down 
love, and thus preserve it, what a blessing it would 
be to thousands ; but I fear it would be a difficult task. 

There are, however, many homes where connubial 
discord never finds entrance ; though but few where 
monotony cannot insinuate itself. Discord is an in- 
cendiary who sets fire to the house of love, over one's 
very head; but monotony is an underminer, 'who 
saps the foundations, and when there is a fall, love is 
for ever buried in the ruins. How silly then is the 
old touch-word of love — "let us never part." In 
direct opposition to this, my advice to you is to part 
as often at least as is necessary to give a little tingo 
of freshness to your reunion. 



220 Comic Aspect of Love. 

A young married lady once said to me, " Oli how I 
wish, my husband and myself were as happy as when 
we were courting!" "Well," I replied, "why then did 
you not keep on courting ?" When husband and wife 
cease to court each other, the romantic passion will 
soon fly the house. 

It is a great deal easier work to win a lover, than 
to keep him. It is certainly a laughable sight to see 
what pains men and women take to catch each other, 
and how little pains they take to hold on to each other. 
The ancients did well to represent Cupid as a blind 
god, for he not only makes men and women run 
blind after each other, but he leaves them equally 
blind as to the means of keeping each other. 

But the ancients not only represented Cupid as 
blmd, but he was also described as the mightiest of 
the gods, sometimes even above Jupiter himself; and 
if we had time to go over the history of the world, we 
should find that many of the greatest events are the 
bUfid deeds of this bhnd divinity. 

One of the most comical combats in the history of 



Comic Aspect of Love. 221 

love, took place in the reign of the Emperor Maxi- 
milian 11. Two noblemen, one a Grerman, the 
other a Spaniard, who had each rendered great ser- 
vice to the Emperor, asked the hand of Helena his 
daughter in marriage. Maximilian replied, " that as 
he esteemed them both alike, it was impossible for 
him to choose between them, and that, therefore, their 
own prowess must decide it ; but not being willing to 
risk the loss of either by engaging them in deadly 
combat, he ordered a large sack to be brought, and 
declared that he who should put his rival into it, 
should have his fair Helena." 

And this whimsical combat was actually performed 
in the presence of the Imperial Court, and lasted an 
hour. The unhappy Spanish nobleman was first 
overcome, and the German baron succeeded in enve- 
loping him in the sack, took him upon his back, and 
laid him at the feet of the Emperor. I suppose this 
is the origin of the phrase, ^^ gave him the sach^^ so 
common in the literature of courting, and which is, I 

believe, a doomsday word in the ears of discarded or 
15 



222 Comic Aspect of Love. 

rejected lovers. But love has not confined its comi- 
calities and its extravagant freaks to the region of 
the state and diplomacy, bnt it has chmbed np even 
to the gravity of the church, and played its pranks 
with the dignity and sanctity of religion and holy 
orders. 

The Ancient History of the Church aJBEbrds many 
of the most comic illustrations of our subject ; but 
they are such melancholy examples of human weak- 
ness and folly, that we must feel a sense of pain even 
in the laughter they excite. 

In the 13th century in France, there was a most 
extraordinary sect of fanatics, which went by the 
name of the *' The Lovers' Leagued Their zeal was 
to prove the excess of their love by their invincible 
obstinacy in withstanding the seasons. 

The married and single men and women who were 
initiated into that order, were bound by solemn oath 
to cover themselves with the thinnest apparel in the 
most frosty weather, and also to bundle themselves 
up in the warmest clothing in the hottest days of sum- 



Comic Aspect of Love. 223 

mer. In tlie warmest seasons they lighted great 
fires, and in the coldest there was not a coal allowed 
upon the hearth. Their chimneys in mid- winter were 
trimmed with fresh foliage,. and all the evergreens of 
Slimmer. If one of the members of this sect entered 
the honse of a brother, the husband instantly left, pui; 
the visitor's horse into the stable, and never returned 
to his own house until the visiting brother was gone : 
and so, in turn, he was treated in the same hospitable 
way, when he went to visit. 

This religious sect won to its faith many men and 
women of intellect and position. But the habit of 
freezing themselves in winter and roasting in sum- 
mer, and other excesses, seems to have made such fear- 
ful inroads upon their health, that the ridiculous sect 
died gradually out in ten or fifteen years. 

At a little earlier date there was a sect in Italy 
called the Fratricelli^ which was a sort of free love 
church. They had for their chiefs those who professed 
great religious sanctity, and who under the pretence 
of morality led the most dissolute lives. The sect 



224 Comic Aspect of Love. 

spread rapidly, iintil it was forcibly suppressed by the 
thirteenth, general council at Vienna, under the Ponti- 
ficate of Pope Clement V. 

The Mormons, and numerous other modern reli* 
gionists, give a similar proof of the ridiculous results 
which spring from a combination of fanaticism and 
love. When religious fanaticism works by love, good- 
bye to all the wholesome restraints of chastity and 
law. 

When we see these things as far off as the 13th cen- 
tury, we can laugh at them; even no farther than Salt 
Lake City they are very funny; but it would no 
longer be a subject of amusement if such practices 
were brought to our own doors, and into our own 
families. For instance, suppose that borne along from 
one degree to another on the tide of religious enthu- 
siasm, the wife's affections should gradually relax 
their tender and beautifal hold upon the circle of 
home, and should so far wander abroad as to find the 
excitement of the evening meeting indispensable to her 
happiness ! Her imagination once unduly aroused by 



Comic Aspect of Love. 225 

a new and novel entlinsiasm, would bear her on very 

rapidly into new attacliments, and into outside circles 

of enjoyment and affection. And then suppose that 

the husband's house should at all times be as open to 

the minister as was the house of a member of the 

lovers' league to a visiting brother, how long do you 

think it would be before the ministering brother 

would have a greater influence over the wife for good 

or evil, than the husband ? 

I have no means of judging except from general 

principles of human nature. Whatever invades the 

sanctity and unity of home ; whatever strikes even at 

the exclusiveness of home; whatever admits outside 

authority or outside enthusiasm of any kind, to share 

a fraction of the affection and the interest of the home, 

opens the door to the insidious spirit of temptation 

and intrigue ; and if all the absurd and demoralizing 

vagaries of the free love fanaticism follow in their 

train, you may thank the hand, whosesoever it was, 

which first drew the wife's or the husband's enthusiasm 

into other circles than those of home, 

10^ 



226 Comic Aspect of Love. 

Maliomet several times altered the spirit and tlie 
letter of Ms spiritual revelations at tlie dictation of 
love. It was love that induced him to insert into the 
Koran the article which permits husbands to fall in 
love with their handsome female servants. 

Mahomet had two wives when he became enamor- 
ed of one of his slaves, named Moutia, of singular 
beauty. His wives publicly reproached him with 
this, and to make it all right, he was obliged to make 
Allah speak, which he did in the fifty-sixth chapter 
of .the Koran, where he declares that it had been re- 
vealed to him that all good Mussulmans might make 
love to their slaves in spite of their wives. This 
pretty Moutia, whose charms brought down such a 
singular revelation from Allah, was an Egyptian by 
birth, and by education a Christian, and it was said 
that the government of Egypt had presented her to 
Mahomet. But no sooner had heaven been made to 
sanction concubinage, than it also fully authorized 
adultery, for the prophet becoming enamored of the 
wife of one of his freedmen named Gaib, he carried 



Comic Aspect of Love. 227 

her off and married her. This occasioned a great 
scandal at first, but Mahomet put a stop to all mur 
murs, by making an addition to the thirty- third chap- 
ter of the Koran, where he makes Allah declare that 
he had married Zanib to his prophet! And as this 
new article might justly awaken the apprehensions of 
all husbands who had pretty wives, Mahomet made 
Heaven declare also that if he should ever in future 
become enamored of married women, they should be 
sacred; and this was perfectly satisfactory to the 
husbands. 

There is indeed no end to the vagaries of love 
when once it is connected with the religious element, 
or even with philosophical enthusiasm. The religious 
Mormons, and the philosophical Free-lovers, are suflS.- 
cient evidences of that. 

The vagaries of this free-love philosophy are as 
old in the world as sin. But they have never accom- 
pHshed anything, yet, with all their fine-spun theo- 
ries, but to tempt and destroy women. Upon man 
they have only had the effect to degrade his own 



228 Comic Aspect of Love. 

soul, wliile they have not much, injured his public 
position, because he has the making of public opinion 
in his own hands. Give woman an equal share in 
the manufacture of public opinion, and she might 
then more safely compete with man in practising this 
demoralizing philosophy with impunity. 

But as it is, man has a complete monopoly of this 
whole business, and all that woman can safely do is 
to touch not, and taste not, the fruits of such ridicu- 
lous vagaries. She must make the principle con- 
tained in the following lines from Goethe's Faustus 
the rule of her being : — 

"Ah I maiden, fair! 

What dost thou there, 

Pr'ythee declare, 
kt the door of thy love ere morning? 

What can' St thou win ? \ 

Pure from aU sin ; 

He lets thee in, 
Will he let thee out so at dawning? 

" Wow stars are bright, 
Wait for the night, 



Comic Aspect of Love. 229 

If not, good night, 
Grood night to your fame, says the singer. 

Keep her from harm, 

List not his charm, 

Ely from his arm. 
If he show not the ring on his finger." 



Wits and Women of Paris. 



Wits and Women of Paris. 



■♦♦^ 



The Frencii wits tell a laugliable story of an un- 
travelled Englisliman wlio, on landing at Calais, was 
received by a sulky red-haired hostess, when he in- 
stantly wrote down in his note-book — "All French 
women are sulky and red-haired." 

We never heard whether this Enghshman after 
wards corrected his first impressions of French women, 
but quite Hkely he never did, for there is nothing so 
difficult on earth as for an Enghshman to get over 
first impressions, and especially is this the case in 
relation to everything in France. An aristocratic 
Enghshman may hve years in Paris without really 
knowing anything about it. In the first place, he 
goes there with letters of introduction to the Faubourg 



234 Wits and Women of Paris. 

St. Grermain, where lie finds only the fossil remains 
of the old noblesse^ intermixed with a shght proportion 
of the actual intelligence of the country, and here he 
moves round in the stagnant circles of historical 
France, and it is a wonder if he gets so much as a 
glimpse of the living progressive Paris. There is 
nothing on earth, unless it be a three thousand year 
old mummy, that is so grim, and stiff, and shrivelled, 
as the pure old French nobility. 

France is at present the possessor of three separate 
and opposing Nobilities. 

1st. There is the Nobility of the Empire, the Na- 
poleonic nobility, which is based on mihtary and civil 
genius. 

2d. There is the Orleans Nobility, the family of the 
late Louis Philippe, represented in the person of the 
young Count de Paris. 

3d. The Legitimists, or the old aristocracy of the 
Bourbon stock, represented in the person of Henry 
the Fifth, Due de Bordeaux, now some fifty years old, 
and laid snugly away in exile in Italy. 



Wits and Women of Paris. 235 

It is worthy of remark tliat the Orleanists and the 
Legitimists do not bear to each other much more Ioyq 
than they do the Bonaparte family. 

In fact, both Legitimists and Orleanists winked at 
the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon, because they pre- 
ferred to accept what they deem a temporary outside 
rule, rather than to give way one to the other. Those 
who are familiar with the actual state of things in 
France know very well that Louis Napoleon obtained 
the throne through the mutual jealousies of the Legi- 
timists and the Orleanists, and we may add that he 
holds that throne by the same tenure ; and whenever 
the interests of those opposing families become one^ 
then will the present Emperor have to battle sharply 
to retain his throne ; and that time may not be far off. 

The Due de Bordeaux, who is without issue, is the 
last of the old Bourbon line, and when he dies that 
branch of the royal claimants will become extinct, and 
then the Count de Paris will be the sole legitimate heir 
to the throne of France. Then the now divided inte- 
rests wiU become one. 



236 - Wits and Women of Paiis. 

To this consolidated aristocracy we may add that 
other power most considerable in France, the Sociahst 
or Democratic party, who thoroughly hate Louis Na- 
poleon, and will jump at the first opportunity to 
revenge themselves upon what they regard as his 
treachery to the republic. The Emperor is himself 
keenly sensible to the fact that whenever all these in- 
terests become consolidated into one against him, as 
by the accident of the death of one man they are quite 
sure to do, he wUl be terribly shaken upon his throne. 
This is probably the real reason of his anxiety to seal 
a fast friendship between himself and England, in 
which project he is encouraged by the fact that Eng- 
land really owes the Bourbons no particular good 
will. Now it is this old Bourbon or Legitimate line 
that we mean when we speak of the aristocracy of 
France. This nobility has all the old and most 
revered names of France — ^names rendered dear to the 
French by association with the early battles and 
proudest history of the country. 

This nobility lives in isolation from the rest of 



Wits and Women of Paris. 237 

France. Thej regard their coTintry as now in a 
state of anarcliy. They did not acknowledge Lonis 
Philippe, and they patiently wait for the time when 
a legitimate sovereign shall sit once more on the con- 
secrated throne of the Bourbons. 

This proud old Nobility never marry out of their 
own ranks. The English nobleman may marry a 
tradesman's daughter, but a French nobleman of this 
branch would as soon renounce his religion as do 
that. They are not a part of society in France, 
rarely ever appear at public places of amusement, or 
show themselves in any of the ordinary thorough- 
fares of the people. However poor they may be, 
they still quietly and proudly wrap themselves in 
the dignity of their birth, and shut their eyes and 
ears to all the activities of living France. 

There was one lady of this Nobility, bearing the 
historic name of Forbin Jansen, who made a mesalli- 
ance for her second marriage, with a celebrated 
painter by the name of Jaquard. For this she was 
banished from society, but being a most estimable 



238 Wits and Women of Paris. 

lady, slie retained tlie respect of many individuals of 
the Nobility, who quietly continued her society. Cir- 
cumstances brought me to the acquaintance, and I 
may say to the friendship of this lady. She was a 
great admirer, and by her influence a patron of art 
and genius in whatever profession it displayed itself. 
I had to ascend six flights of stairs, where I found 
the old marquise surrounded with poverty, but still 
with all the airs of real nobility. There, in that 
garret, she received the most distinguished names of 
old Prance ; and although in great poverty, she is still 
a leading oracle of the ancient legitimist nobility. 
With that nobility wealth or poverty is nothing ; all 
is birth. 

Much is said and much believed in this country 
about the intrigues among the different classes of the 
French, but in justice to them it must be said that 
nearly all these intrigues are somehow based in intel- 
lectualism. Intellectual beauty goes farther in Paris 
than in any other part of the globe. 

It is not uncommon to see an old lady of sixty 



Wits and Women of Paris. 239 

years tlie idol of a man of tliirty. Mdlle. Mars, the 
great comic actress of France, wlien she was sixty 
years old, won the heart and mind of Count de 
Morny, who was but twenty-six, and one of the 
handsomest men in France. I have seen him 
myself at the Italian opera in Paris, hang oyer her 
chair, as though he were about to dissolve into sighs ; 
it was spring madly laying its head of flowers in the 
lap of winter. And yet she was not even in her 
youth, beautiful ; but she knew how to be charming. 
And above all, and more than all, she had genius, 
which always goes so far with the French gallant. 
The world is familiar with the fact that when she 
was robbed of all her diamonds, this young Count 
presented her with a new set worth over four hun- 
dred thousand francs ! 

The famous Dejazet, another actress of great comic 
genius, when she was forty-five years old, though 
neither beautiful nor refined in her manners, ran 
away with the hearts of half the young men of Paris. 
The son of that General Bertrand who shared the 



240 Wits and Women of Paris. 

captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena, became totally 
ruined in Ms fortune by this celebrated wit. There 
was a time when no feast for literary people in Paris 
was complete without her. Her wit sparkled like 
champagne. Her repartees were inimitable, and 
were repeated from mouth to mouth all over Paris, 
N'othing could equal the magnificence and elegance 
of her house — ^her kind heart was like a deep well 
for ever flowing. 

Young, and when her genius was in the first fresh 
tide of its fame, a young nobleman, not oyer gifted 
with brains, used to wait upon her almost every day 
with some valuable present, as a testimony of the 
admiration her mental gifts had won. But one day 
he came without a present, and, in a confused manner, 
told her in the presence of her company that he should 
hereafter bring a present only every other day ; " then," 
said she, " come only every other day." 

No description which I can give can convey a just 
idea of the fascination of society among such wits as 
Dejazet; and nowhere do you find that kind of 



Wits and Women of Paris. 241 

society so compete as in Paris. Nowhere else do you 
find so many women of wit and genius mingling in tlie 
assemblies and festive occasions of literary men ; and 
I may add tliat in no part of tlie world is literary 
society so refined, so brilliant, and cbarmingly intel- 
lectual as in Paris. It is a great contrast to literary 
society in London or America. Listen to tbe foUoYf- 
ing confession of Lord Byron: — "I bave left an 
assembly filled witb all tbe great names of haut-ton in 
London, and wbere little but names were to be found, 
to seek relief from tbe ennui tbat overpowered me, in 
a cider cellar ! and bave found there more food for 
speculation than in the vapid circles of gUttering dub 
ness I had left." 

Could the noble poet have found in London the 
society that gathers around such wits and men of 
genius as Dumas, Victor Hugo, Mery, Samson, in 
Paris, he would have been spared the humihation of 
seeking the society of a cider-cellar to save himself 
from ennui. Around these last-mentioned literary 

lights revolved the intelligence and wit of Paris during 

11 



242 Wits and Women of Paris. 

my residence there six years ago. Of these Dumas 
was tlie first, as lie would be in any city of the world. 
He is not only the boon companion of princes, but the 
prince of boon companions. He is now about fifty-five 
years old — a tall, fine looking man, with intellect 
stamped on his brow, and wit sparkling in every look 
and motion. Of all the men I ever met with, he is 
the most brilliant in conversation. His nature is over- 
flowing with generosity, and he is consequently always 
out of pocket. He receives immense sums for his 
writings, but they never meet his expenses. Indeed, 
one of the funniest things in Paris is the perpetual 
flight of Alexander Dumas from his creditors. To 
elude them he used sometimes to live from house to 
house, among his friends. He once went to borrow 
five francs of a wealthy old lady, who said, ^' Oh, 
Monsieur Dumas, a hundred if you want it." But he 
said, ^^ Only five, to pay my cab hire." He was a great 
favorite of this excellent old lady, and in the conver- 
sation she informed him that she had just finished hci 
preserves for the winter, and insisted on his taking a 



Wits and Women of Paris, 243 

pot as a present. The servant girl took it down to 
Dumas's cab, whereon lie immediately handed her the 
five-franc piece which he had borrowed of her mistress 
— ^the only actual money he was at that time in posses- 
sion of. Such is Alexander Dumas's appreciation and 
use of money. 

Another time Dumas met a poor artist who told 
him he was starving, and had not a penny to save 
himself. Dumas had not a penny either, but he found 
a gentleman who knew him, and went with him into 
the first bank they passed. He said to the banker, *^ I 
am Alexander Dumas." All immediately paid their 
respects to him ; he continued, " Here is a gentleman 
whom you know, who knows that I am Dumas, and 
here is a poor artist who is starving, and I have no 
money to give him. I wish you to accept a bond from 
me on the first book I write for fifty francs." It was 
accepted, and the poor artist went on his way rejoic- 
ing. 

It very often happens that when Dumas is visiting 
a Mend, one of his creditors is announced^ and he 



244 Wits and Women of Paris. 

instantly makes for Ms hat, and flies before his foe 
like a Mexican lancer. He owes everybody in Paris; 
out of a hundred men you meet, you may be sure that 
seventy-five of them are Dumas's creditors. 

His marriage was an act of flight from a creditor. 
The lady was an actress, Mdlle. Ada, who had neithei* 
beauty, genius, nor a spotless character to commend 
her — ^but her father was a broker to whom poor Dumas 
owed immense sums of money, and he was pushing 
Dumas to the last extremity of the law for his money. 
But Dumas had no money, and the old broker, seized 
with a bright thought, proposed to forgive him the 
whole amount if he would marry his daughter Ada. 
This alternative Dumas preferred to going to jail, so 
he did marry her — if su.ch a life as they afterwards 
led could be called a married life. 

One afternoon, on stepping suddenly into his own 
drawing-room, he caught a stranger gentleman in the 
act of giving a kiss to his wife. He gazed at him with 
wonder for some time, and then exclaimed, ^^ Good 
heavens, and without his being obUged to !" 



Wits and Women of Paris. 245 

Dumas lias always been a great fayorite with tlie 
Orleans family ; in fact, I know not what society in 
France is not glad to receive him, though he has a 
horror of society, in the usual acceptation of the term. 
He is always sought for at convivial suppers, and is 
always sure to attend them. 

Eoger de Beauvoir, another wit and writer of 
romance and poetry, was one of the three men that 
kept Paris alive when I was there. He was most 
eccentric, a great ladies' man, always dressed like a 
Cujpid taken out of a band-box. His fights with his 
creditors were the most remarkable part of his history. 
One time he emptied the contents of his bath-tub on 
the head of his creditor, who fled in terror, never to 
come back again. At another time he threw all the 
wood and coal of his huge French fireplace on several 
unfortunate creditors who were standing in the court- 
yard attempting to gain admittance, and refusing to 
leave without some kind of satisfaction, which they got 
at last in the shape of burning coals on their heads. 
But Eoger was a genius, and always managed by an 



246 Wits and Women of Paris. 

invitation to a supper party to silence Ms creditors, 
promising that they should have the honor to hear and 
see the male and female celebrities of the day. 

Samson, another of this trinity of wits, was an actor 
and a teacher of the great Eachel. He was an excellent 
man, highly respected, and his decision in all theatri- 
cal matters was law. He always reminded me of 11 
passage from Ben Jonson descriptive of a town wit — 
" Alas ! Sir Horace is a mere sponge ; nothing but 
humors and observations, he goes up and down suck- 
ing from every society, and when he comes home, 
squeezes himself dry again. He will tell all he 
knows. He would sooner lose his best friend than 
his best jest." 

But Samson was an amiable jester, and always 
inclined to the good-natured side of human nature. 
In this respect he was a great and happy contrast to 
another celebrated person I used to meet with, Jules 
Janin, the malicious and caustic critic of the " Journal 
des Dehatsy Samson used to call him the execu- 
tioner, and he bore another name, "the guillotinist of 



Wits and Women of Paris. 247 

artists." . Every one feared Mm, and everybody was 
particularly civil to Ilim tiirougli fear. I do not know 
(his wife not excepted), of any one ttat loves Mm in 
all Paris... The charming Countess de Merlain, a lite- 
rary woman herself, and whose saloons were ever 
crowded by talent and genius, always said of him that 
whenever he entered her presence she had after each 
visit one grey hair the more. 

But there is no doubt of his ability as a critic and 
translator ; he always appeared as if he were locked 
up, lest the world should see into his heart. But he 
has great power in his way in Paris, a competent critic 
in art being always a great man there. Love of art is 
a distinctive trait of the French nation. In fact you 
see art in everything there. The cook is an artist, 
who compounds his flavors with as nice a respect to 
science, as does the painter in combining his colors. 
The French woman is an artiste in the selection of her 
toilette ; and even the youth who arranges Cashmere 
shawls, laces, or what not, in a shop window, shows the 
artistic feeling also. It will not perhaps be a matter 



248 Wits and Women of Paris. 

of indifference to ladies to know that tlie celebiated 
Mons. Constatin (a Portuguese nobleman in exile), 
celebrated for bis artificial flowers, of wbicb tbere is 
no equal, is so particular about bis finest specin^ens 
tbat be bas tbe real flower put into a glass of water and 
tbe imitated one by its side in anotber, and tbe young 
ladies employed in its manufacture are all made to say 
wbicb is tbe real and wbicb tbe artificial ; sbould one 
of tbem tell tbe difference, tbe flower is destroyed and 
recommenced over again. In fact, everytbing is art 
in Paris. Tbere are artists in coat-making (otber- 
wberes called tailors) ; artists in sboemaking ; artists in 
bair ; and even I remember one day seeing on a little 
sign-board " artist in blacking boots." 

One of tbe most remarkable and tbe most noted 
persons to be met witb in Paris is Madame Dudevant, 
commonly known as Greorges Sand. Sbe is now about 
fifty years of age (it is no crime to speak of tbe age of 
a woman of ber genius), a large, masculine, coarse-fea- 
tured woman, but witb fine eyes, and open, easy 
frank, and bearty in ber manner to friends. To a dis 



Wits and Women of Paris. 249 

cerning mind her writings will convey a correct idea 
of tlie woman. You meet her everywhere dressed in 
men's clothes — a custom which she adopts from no 
mere caprice or waywardness of character, but for the 
reason that in this garb she is enabled to go where she 
pleases without exciting curiosity, and seeing and 
hearing what is most useful and essential for her in 
writing her books. She is undoubtedly the most mas- 
culine mind of France at the present day. 

Through the folly of her relations she was early 
married to a fool, but she soon left him in disgust, and 
afterwards formed a friendship with Jules Sandeau, a 
novelist and clever critic. It was he who discovered 
her genius, and first caused her to write. It was the 
name of this author, Jules Sandeau, that she altered 
into George Sand, a name which she has made im- 
mortal. 

Q-eorges Sand in company is silent, and except when 

the conversation touches a sympathetic cord in her 

nature, little given to demonstration. Then she will talk 

earnestly on great matters, generally on Philosophy 

11^ 



250 Wits and Women of Paris. 

or Tlieology, but in vain will yon seek to dra\^ 
lier into conversation on the little matters of ordinary 
cHtrcliat. Slie lives in a small circle of friends, where 
slie can say and do as she pleases. Her son is a poor 
weak-brained creature, perpetually annoying the whole 
neighborhood, by beating on a huge drum night and 
day. She has a dau.ghter married to Chlessindur, the 
celebrated sculptor — but who resembles but little her 
talented mother. Madame Georges Sand has had a 
life of wild storms, with few rays of sunshine to 
brighten her pathway ; and like most of the reformers 
of the present day, especially if it is her misfortune 
to be a woman, is a target placed in a conspicuous 
position to be shot at by all dark unenlightened human 
beings, who may have peculiar motives for restraining 
the progress of mind ; but it is as absurd in this glorious 
nineteenth century, to attempt to destroy freedom of 
thought, and the sovereignty of the individual, as it 
is to stop the falls of Niagara. 

There was a gifted and fashionable lady (the 
Countess of Agout), herself an accomplished authoress, 



Wits and Women of Paris. 25'! 

concerning wliom and Georges Sand a cnrions story 
is told. They were great friends, and tlae celebrated 
pianist Liszt was tlie admirer of both. Things went 
on smoothly for some time, all couleur de rose ; when 
one fine day Liszt and Greorges Sand disappeared sud- 
denly from Paris, haying taken it into their heads to 
make the tonr of Switzerland for the summer together. 
Great was the indignation of the fair Countess at this 
double desertion ; and when they returned to Paris, 
Madame d'Agout went to Georges Sand and imme- 
diately challenged the great writer to a duel, the 
weapons to be finger-nails, etc. Poor Liszt ran out of 
the room and locked himself up in a dark closet 
till the deadly affray was ended, and then made his 
body over in charge to a friend, to be preserved, as he 
said, for the remaining assailant. 

Madame d'Agout was married to an old man, a 
book- worm, who cared for naught else but his Li- 
brary ; he did not know even the number of children 
he possessed, and so little the old philosopher cared 
about the matter that when a stranger came to the 



252 Wits and Women of Paris. 



house, lie inyariablj, at the appearance of the family^ 
said, ^^ Allow me to present to yon my wife's children,'' 
all this with the blandest smile and most contented 
air. 

I once asked Georges Sand which she thought the 
greatest pianist, Liszt or Thalberg ; she replied Liszt is 
the first, but there is only one Thalberg. If I were 
to attempt to give you an idea of the difference between 
Liszt and Thalberg, I should say that Thalberg is like 
the clear, placid flow of a deep grand river — while 
Liszt is the same tide foaming, and bubbling, and dash- 
ing on like a cataract. If Liszt were to come to this 
country, he would raise a furore^ as he did in Hun- 
gary, — ^where the gallant Hungarians, beside them- 
selves with admiration, presented the piano-forte 
player with a handsome sword ; forgetting the ridi- 
cule of a weapon of destruction in hands that never 
destroyed or fought anything else but a piano-forte, 

Now to return a moment to Georges Sand. The 
stories of her indehcate eccentricities, so freely circu- 
lated in the press of the United States, are perfect 



Wits and Women of Paris 253 

fabrications. Slie is a large-brained and large-bearted 
woman, conscious of ber own strength, and therefore 
independent in ber opinions. All tbe absurd tales about 
tbis great-minded woman, are probably not so mucb 
intended by those that invented them for malice, as 
for the sake of making some interesting gossiping 
paragraph about this celebrated woman. 

I am happy that there was one American author, the 
late lamented Margaret Fuller, who had not only the 
intellect to rightly understand her, but the courage 
to defend her. 

In Paris hterary people and artists form a distinct 
society of their own, where others find it sometimes 
impossible to enter. What need Greorges Sand care 
for l^e artificial, and I may add the hypocritical pre- 
tensions of what calls itself par excellence society? 
When that society has all vanished like a vapor, 
when not a vestige is left of it, she will still live in the 
memory and the admiration of posterity. 

The incidents of her life which have furnished food 
for silly people and lovers of scandal, will be forgotten, 

i7 



254 Wits and Women of Paris. 

and the light of lier genius will shine in the circles 
that shall gather around thousands of hearths in every 
country. 

Georges Sand gives a laughable account of an old, 
shrivelled, and miserable-looking piece of parchment 
in the shape of a Countess, who came hobbling into a 
company in the cholera time, smelling something from 
a good-sized bottle and exclaiming : — ^^ Oh, this is very 
dreadfu.], the cholera is making frightful progress." 
It was all very well when the people only were 
attacked. They were justly punished for their sins, 
and their provoking insolence. But the matter is 
really now becoming more alarming. The disease is 
beginning to invade the ranks of society. Monsieur 

Le Marquis B was carried off this morninp; ; he 

died a beautiful death!" 

The thing to be noticed in this anecdote is the dis- 
tinction made between the people and society ; and I 
think you will agree with me that persons who are 
received and respected by the former, need not bother 
themselves much about the latter. 



Wits and Women of Paris. 255 

I liave occasionally met Eachel in the company of 
literary people and artists in Paris, but slie was never 
a feature, never even a prominent member of sucb a 
party. As slie loved nothing but money, nothing else 
appeared to love her. She had no talent for conversa- 
tion. She had indeed but one gift, that of delivery — • 
of concentrated mimicry, in which she was unsurpassed. 
. Lamartine I have often met on business, but not in 
company. He seldom goes anywhere. He is a dreary, 
lonely man, who shuns crowds, and isolates himself in 
a beautiful world of his own. His wife is an English- 
woman, who has small sympathy with the French 
manners, which fact may further contribute to keep- 
ing him from the world; and besides he has not 
recovered and never will, the death of his only child, 
a sweet young thing fifteen years old, who died in 
Syria of consumption. 

In this connexion I may name old Professor Tissot 
of the French Academy, and the oldest Academician in 
France. The scientific world is as familiar with his 
name as with the name of science itself. He is a rem* 



256 Wits and Women of Paris. 

nant of dead France ; a guide-book througL. all tlie 
labyrinths of its revolutions, and scenes of blood. He 
witnessed the reign of terror, the execution of Madame 
Eoland, and that of Charlotte Corday, and the fall aiid 
death of Eobespierre. He was an intimate friend of 
Madame de Stael, was a spectator of the accession of 
the Empire, of the downfall of the Empire, of the 
restoration of the Bourbons, of the downfall of the 
Bourbons, of the accession of the younger branch of 
the house of Orleans, of its downfall, and of the 
return of the Bonapartes. 

He it was that furnished Lamartine with much of 
his materials for his '' History of the Girondins." 
He wanders about Paris, pointing out the places of 
the past, showing you where Danton, Eobespierre, 
Marat, and Mirabeau lived, and where all the horrors 
of the reign of terror took place. He comes some- 
times among his friends and relates his tales of horror. 
The old man could not be satisfied with living in any 
decently named street of the present day, but haa 
resided with his old wife in the ancient part of Parisj 



Wits and Women of Paris. 257 

giving liis address Professor Tissot, rue de I'Enfer 
(Hell street). 

The old man is mucli esteemed by tlie students, and 
though, pensioned by government, still lectures to his 
pupils. Such another relic of past events I venture 
to say does not exist in the world. 

I have now sketched my impressions of some of 
the really celebrated literary people and artists with 
whom I have a personal acquaintance, but had almost 
forgotten one who never will be forgotten in the 
hearts of the reading people throughout the world, 
and who has lately gone to his rest. You will at once 
know that I am speaking of Eugene Sue. His courage 
in avowing his opinions in the face of whatever oppo- 
sition, and even of threats, marks him as one of the 
great heroes of the age. He was an honest, sincere, 
truth-loving man ; and it will be long before Paris 
can fill the place which death has made vacant. 

I have something more to say of the social and 
moral aspects of life in Paris, which impressed me as 
being not essentially different from life in the othei 



2^8 Wits and Women of Paris. 

capitals of the civilized world, except in its disuse of 
masks and false pretensions. Vice lias got an ugly 
fashion of going naked in Paris, while in London and 
New York it dresses itself up in garments of respect- 
ability, if not of absolute piety, and so disguises and 
hides itself, that externally it ceases to be apparent. 
But after all that has been said about the immoralities 
of Paris, the difference between that city and London 
and New York is more in appearance than in reality. 
In attempting a sketch of social life in the French 
capital, I am obliged to speak of the women, because 
I do not suppose that any one expects any particular 
amount of morality among the men. There is no 
city where young girls are so entirely protected from 
every temptation as in Paris. The treatment of young 
unmarried women there is entirely Oriental. They are 
watched by mothers with extremest care, not only be- 
cause it is believed to be right as a principle, but because 
no you.ng lady has the least prospect of a respectable 
marriage, if the idea gets abroad that this watchfulness 
has been for a single moment relaxed. A mother who 



Wits and Women of Paris. 259 

should allow Iter daughter to walk out alone but once 
with a young man, is regarded as haying disgraced 
her child, and the poor girl is immediately pointed at. 
Even after the marriage contract is signed, they are 
allowed but little liberty of intercourse, and never see 
each other except in the presence of others. They sit 
at opposite sides of the room, and any show of affec- 
tion would be considered not only ridiculous but ilh 
Ired. As one extreme follows another, the French 
ladies, when once they are emancipated by marriage 
(and marriage in France in the fashionable world is a 
complete emancipation from restraint), make up for 
lost time. The wife in Paris is as free as the girl is 
restrained. You must understand that nine-tenths 
of all marriages are brought about by calculation and 
reason, and not at all by affection. Marriage there is 
not a union of persons, but a union of properties or 
of worldly interests. A wealthy person went to a 
banker and sa^d, ^'I want to marry your daughter; 
here are the title-deeds of my estates." Nothing more 
was requisite, the match was sealed, and the daughter, 



26o Wits and Women of Pans. 

rejoicing in the marriage tronsseau, was transferred tc 
tlie purchaser. Grenerally speaking, however, it is the 
young ladj who has to buy the husband. I have 
read of a peasant who was about to lead to the altar 
a young bride, all blushes and muslin, when her father 
observed: ^^Now I think of it, I must remind you 
that the great cherry-tree in the orchard remains 
mine." ^'No," said the bridegroom, '4t must be 
mine." ^^No," said the father, ^4t remains mine." 
"Well then," said the bridegroom, ^'I will not marry 
your daughter." And so the ceremony was stopped. 
But I have heard a still more laughable story. A 
washerwoman had betrothed her dau_ghter, a girl of 
fifteen years old, to a barber, and promised to give 
her a dowry of five hundred francs. The day before 
the marriage, the girl came to the shop an4 peeped in 
at the door, saying, " Mother says she has changed 
her mind about the dowry." The barber, who had 
the nose of one of his customers between his thumb 
and finger, looked over his shoulder and replied, 
""Zou are joking." "No," said the bride apparent 



Wits and Women of Paris. 261 

" motlier wants tlie money herself." ^^ Then tell her/' 
said the barber, making a gash on his victim's chin, 
*^ that I sha'n't marry yon." This may appear an 
exaggeration, bnt it is not so. It is quite common to 
hear of marriages being broken off in Paris on this 
account. What is marriage worth under such cir- 
cumstances? What protection is marriage to a wo- 
man where her heart is not the object of the alliance? 
It is undoubtedly true that comparatively few mar- 
riages remain long undisturbed in Paris. Woman is 
possessed with a higher and holier feeling than the 
mere selfish disposition of her person. The reason 
why the works of Georges Sand have had great in- 
fluence, is becau.se they correspond with the state of 
female pu.bhc opinion. She did not invent, but she 
drew attention to existing grounds of complaint 
The French women have wept over ^'Indiana," and 
read " Consuelo" with approving heart. 

K the wives of Paris are accused of intrigues, it is 
because marriage is less an affair of the heart than 
the purse. The French woman is naturally inteUi- 



262 Wits and Women of Paris. 

gent, and consequently seeks for intelligence in those 
around her. In England you hear of young ladies 
eloping with their fathers' footmen, and in America 
a lady may be captivated in the same way ; but in 
France, a woman never intrigues with those in inferior 
position to herself. 

The great evil of Paris is that there is no such insti 
tution there as Home ; as a general fact that sanctifiei 
of the heart — that best shelter and friend of woman — > 
that beautiful feeling called ^' Home " — does not exist. 
The nearest approach to this deplorable state of things 
is fou.nd among the business people of the United 
States. I have noticed this particularly in New York, 
where the merchant is never at home, except to sleep, 
and even then his brain is so racked with per cents, 
advances, or depressions in prices, the rise and fall of 
stocks, &c., that he brings no fond affection to his 
family. The husband's brain is a ledger, and his 
heart a counting-room. And where is woman to find 
in all this the response to a heart overflowing with 
affection ? And this is as true in New York as in Paris, 



Wits and Women of Paris. 263 

Indeed, as for intrigues, New York may almost rival 
Paris. There is no country where the women are 
more fond of dress and finery than the United States, 
and history shows ns that there is no such depraver 
of women as this vanity. A hundred women stumble 
over that block of vanity, where one falls by any 
other cause. And if the insane mania for dress and 
show does not end in a general decay of female 
morals, then the lessons of history and the experience 
of all ages must go for naught. 

Georges Sand relates an instance of having seen a 
blooming beauty wandering along the streets of Paris, 
where she was accosted by a young student, who said, 
"Where are you going?" She replied, "Nowhere." 
" Then," said he, " as we are both bound for the same 
place, we will both go together." Alas, there are so 
many young women in Paris who are going "no- 
where," and there are so many foolish young men to 
go with them. How many of those girls that go " no- 
where," who would have been types of noble, indus- 
trious, frugal women, are fallen down and run over 



264 Wits and Women of Paris. 

by tlie waysides of life, "without one good Samaritan 
to lift tliem up again, and to tell them that we have 
all to live to go — somewhere. 

It is well known to those who have read Sterne, 
that when the accusing spirit flew up to Heaven, with 
Uncle Toby's siq, the recording angel, as he wrote it 
down, dropped a tear upon it, and blotted it out for 
ever. 

If there be yet another tear in Heaven, I pray that 
it may be shed upon the spot that records the sins of 
Paris. 



/ 



Romanism, 



13 



Romanism. 



I KNOW not that history has anything more won* 
derfiil to show than the part which the Catholic 
Church has borne in the various civilizations of the 
world. 

IV'hat a marvellous structure it is, with its hier- 
archy ranging throiigh long centuries, almost from 
apostolic days to our own ; hving side by side with 
forms of civihzation and uncivilization, the most 
diverse and the most contradictory through all the 
fifteen hundred years and more of its existence; 
asserting an effective control over opinions and insti- 
tutions ; with its pontificate (as is claimed) dating from 
the fisherman of Galilee, and still reigning there in 
the city that heard Saint Peter preach, and whom it 



268 Romanism. 

saw martyred; impiously pretending to sit in Ms 
chair and to bear Lis keys ; shaken, exiled, broken 
again and again by scMsm, by Lutheran revolts and 
French revolutions; yet always righting itself, and 
reasserting a vitality that neither force nor opinion 
has yet been able to extinguish. Once with its foot 
on the neck of kings, and having the fate of empires 
in its hands, and even yet superintending the grandest 
ecclesiastical mechanism that man ever saw ; ordering 
fast days and feast days, and regulating with Omnipo- 
tent fiat the very diet of millions of people ; having 
countless bands of religious soldiery trained, organ- 
ized, and officered as such a soldiery never was 
before nor since ; and backed by an infallibility that 
defies reason, an inquisition to bend or break the will, 
and a confessional to unlock all hearts and master the 
profoundest secrets of all consciences. Such has been 
the mighty Church of Eome, and there it is still, cast 
down, to be sure, from what it once was, but not yet 
destroyed ; perplexed by the variousness and freedom 
of an intellectual civilization which it hates and 



Romanism. 269 

vainly tries to crnsli; laboriously trying to adapt 
itself to the Europe of tlie nineteentli century, as it 
once did to the Europe of tlie twelffcli ; lengthening 
its cords and strengthening its stakes, enlarging the 
place of its tent, and stretching forth the curtains of 
its habitations even to this Eepublic of the New 
World. 

Such is the tremendous fabric of Eome, standing 
out on the foreground of the world's history, and 
bearing upon its scarred bosom the marks of the vari- 
ous civilizations and barbarisms through which it has 
passed. 

Eegarded in the light of a merely human institu- 
tion, it is worthy of the profoundest study of man ; 
but the moment it puts in a claim of divine origin 
and appointment, it sinks beneath the contempt of 
human reason. If it comes before us in its sacerdotal 
robes and bids us bow our faith to its monstrous pro- 
fanities, we shake it from us and cast it off with dis- 
gust and horror; but in its human aspects, in its 
moral and pohtical career, we will look fairly at it 



270 Romanism. 

and inquire, how it came to pass that an institution 
so loaded with, the crimes and groans of ages, and 
stained with the blood of martyrs, and fraught with 
such shocking absurdities, could hold on so long, and 

play the part it has in the history of the world's pro- 

It 
gress. 

It will not do to dispose of this question by simply 
saying that the Catholic Church was all a lie and 
cheat in the beginning (a lie and cheat most truly it 
is now, as most other institutions of barbarism would 
be if transplanted to the present time), nor will it do 
to call its origin a dehberate scheme for usurping the 
rights of mankind ; for it was not that ; it was as 
natural a growth out of the social, moral, and political 
causes operating in the first six centuries as the insti- 
tutions of the troubadours, of chivalry, and of feud- 
ahsm were of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. 

It grew up slowly and naturally, was moulded 
into its ultimate form by the pressure of many times, 
a:nid bears the marks as much as any other institu- 
tion of the various ages and states of civilization that 



' Romanism. 271 

have successively been cotemporaneous 'vr'tb. it. 1 
can see that it was tlie product of Christianity coming 
in contact with the old Pagan modes of thought and 
feehng, which at that time had full possession of the 
Eoman world ; its doctrines were not priestly manu- 
factures, they were simply the expression of prevalent 
tendencies of the Pagan mind, and the effect of gene- 
ral causes in the moral world. 

For instance, it is plain enough to see where its 
image- worship and hero-worship came from ; for, far 
as these things are removed from the spirit and pre- 
cepts of Christ, they were actually wants of the popu- 
lar mind, trained in the long school of Paganism, 
and familiar with the picturesque materiahsm of the 
Greek philosophy. Eomanism in its origin was a 
compromise between Christianism and Paganism, by 
which nearly all the superstitions and immorahties 
of the latter contrived to get themselves baptized 
with the Christian name. And this fatal compro- 
mise was the work of the people more than of the 
priest ; thus the decision of the Council of Ephesus 



272 Romanism 

(held under Pope Celestine, A. D. 481), tliat it should 
be permitted to invoke Mary of Nazaretli by the 
style and title of "Mother of God," was received by 
tlie people out of doors with shouts of exultation; 
the prelates as they issued from the synod were 
saluted with every expression of applause, and the 
victory was celebrated by a general illumination. 

The doctrine was not made by the priests, it was 
made for them ; forced upon them, in fact, by irresist- 
ible popular sentiment ; and their share in the busi- 
ness was little more than to register the act of the 
multitude. The confessional, with its appended pen- 
ances, the purgatory and masses for the dead, the 
consecration of saintly names and relics, the rise of 
monasticism, with its fasts and vigils, were all the 
product of general impulses of Pagan feeling, finding 
voice and expression in connexion with Christian 
ideas. 

So, too, the dogmatizing theology of Eome, the 
xong creeds fenced by short and sharp anathemas, 
were no arbitrary creation of the early priests, but 



Romanism. 273 

were a result of that taste and talent for theological 
syllogizing, wMcli tlie clinrcli borrowed from the sub- 
tile and disputatious Greek mind. In fact, the whole - - 
thing was little more than a Christian translation of 
Paganism, in which, by a sort of metempsychosis, the 
soul of ancient Greece seemed to live over again. 

So, after all, there is nothing very shocking nor 
very strange in the rise and growth of this vast fabric 
of Eome ; it rose out of a great number of interests, 
or intellectual and moral wants and habits embodied 
into an organized institution by a succession of power- 
fiil minds, themselves partaking of these varied influ- 
ences, and often giving expression to them in con- 
nexion with the most vulgar superstitions of the 
times. 

And herein lies the great secret of the strength and 
success of Eome ; in its perpetual willingness to com- 
pound with whatever popular vice or superstition, 
for the sake of unlimited dominion over the publio 
mind. By this means it has acquired a fearful con- 
trol over opinions and institutions during the fifteen 

12^ 



274 Romanism. 

iLundred years of its reign, and it is impossible to say 
how far tlie providence of God may liaye compel- 
led the va^t worldly forces of this Church to con- 
tribute to the general safety and blessing of hu- 
manity. 

Who shall say that he who " makes the wrath of 
man to praise him," did not also make this stupen- 
dous power subservient to his will, during the dark 
and perilous ages of the past? "Who can say that it 
was not a great thing for Europe, during the centuries 
of darkness and confusion that came in between the 
downfall of the Eoman Empire and the revival of 
law and settled government, to have such a Church ; 
a power professing to be not of this world, and declar- 
ing itself greater than the world; reposing upon 
ideas, and often successfully asserting them, in oppo- 
sition to the brute force which was then the only other 
great European power ? Who can say that it was 
not much for Europe to have had an intellectual and 
moral power like that, visibly embodied, and fixed 
in an institution which could not be moved by the 



Romanism. 275 

anocks of falling states ; a power wliicli had its mis^ 
sionaries out in tlie far north, of Germany, and Anglo- 
Saxon Brittany, sowing the seeds of moral dominion ; 
which could interpose, and often did interpose, be- 
tween oppression and its victim ; proclaimed truces of 
God to the ferocious savagery of war ; took the charge 
of those young Italian Eepublics, ^hich otherwise 
must have been crushed between josthng kingdoms ; 
cherished in the consecrated asylum of its abbeys 
and monasteries, germs of civilization, which, if cast 
carelessly out on the embattled elements, would have 
been trodden under foot of contending warriors ; and 
kept up during those dark ages, an action upon popu- 
lar sentiment and opinion, which, with all its defects 
and misdirections, saved the world from falling into 
utter and irredeemable barbarism. It is easy to say 
that all this was superstition and idolatry, for so it 
was ; but it was infinitely more humanizing than the 
old superstition which it displaced, giving the popular 
imagination idols, images, that were types not of its 
own barbarism, but of the good and of the beautifully 



276 Romanism. 

true^ substituting Holy Families for Thor and Odin, 
and tlie Cross, emblem of bope to mankind, for tbe 
beak and claw of tbe Eoman eagle. 

This mucb bistory compels u.s to say in praise of 
Eome, We cannot deny it tbe merit of baying 
worked well during tbose terrible ages. So long ais 
its doctrines and ceremonies expressed tbe bigbest 
ideas tbat benigbted men bad ; so long as it was in 
advance of tbe average intellect and beart of tbe 
ages ; so long as it was tbe result of vital organic 
growtb, and not, as now, of dead mecbanical pressure; 
so long we cbeerfiiUy accord it tbe merit of baving 
done tbe best it could, and we can say no more 
for it. 

Its stru-ggle ever since bas been to drag tbe beart 
and brain of man backward into tbe nigbt out of 
wbicb it came. It bas been tbe scourge of modern 
civilization, obstinately keeping tbe free progressive 
spirit of man locked up in tbe same eternal prison of 
an arbitrary ritual, and an artificial creed, containing 
dogmas at wbicb common sense revolts, enforced by 



Romanism. 277 

Anatliemas at wticli liiimanity sliudders ; so ordering 
things that there could be no change or progression, 
without a life and death conflict; compelling the 
spirit of reform to be revolutionary ; giving Europe 
a whole century of Eeligious war ; and bequeathing 
to European civilization a spirit of intolerance, 
tyranny, and fiery denunciation, which, but for the 
presence of a spirit strongeo: than itself, would have 
left the world at this time as far from Chistianity and 
Christian civihzation, as in the days of Hildebrand 
and Innocent the Third. 

The only wonder is that su.ch a church should be 
able to push its fortunes so far into the centre of 
modern civilization, with which it can feel no sym- 
pathy, and which it only embraces to destroj^-. I 
confess I find it difl&cult to believe that a total lie 
could administer comfort and aid to so many millions 
of souls ; and the explanation is, no doubt, that it is 
not a total lie; for even its worse doctrines are 
founded on certain great truths which are acc(ipted 
by the common heart of humanity. They are, as wa 



^7^ Romanism. 

maj sr J, caricatures of truths wHcli seize tlie vulgai 
imagination witli a powerful grasp, and cause it to be 
enclianted with the very slavery they impose. Take 
forinstanceitsdoctrmesofuniversality, infallibility, and 
apostolic succession, and we find that they are all simply 
exaggerations or caricatures of great Christian truths. 
There is such a thing as universal truth, and there 
is such a thing as Apostolic succession, made not by 
Edicts, Bulls, and Church Canons, but by an interior 
life divine and true. But all these Eome has per- 
verted, by hardening the diffusive spirit of truth into 
so much mechanism cast into a mould in which it 
has been forcibly kept ; and by getting progressively 
faker and falser, as the world has got older and wiser, 
till the universality became only another name for a 
narrow and intolerant sectism, while the infallibility 
committed itself to absurdity after absurdity, at which 
reason turns giddy, and faith has no resource but to 
shut her eyes ; and the Apostolic succession became 
narrowed down into a mere dynasty of Priests and 
Pontiffs. A hierarchy of magicians, saving souls by 



Romanisni. ^75 

macLinery, opening and sliutting the kingdom of 
heaven by a sesame of incantations wliich it would 
have been the labor of a lifetime to make so much 
as intelligible to St. Peter or St. Paul. 

In this abyss of superstition and moral pollution, 
when the voice of Luther came upon it like tlmnder ; 
when priests and monks had taken to sell salvation 
on slips of paper or parchment ; when heaven, salva- 
tion, the grace of God, were made marketable com- 
modities, priced and ticketed, bought and sold, till 
thinking men began to doubt whether there really 
could be any heaven at all ; it was time for the spirit 
of God that was in man to speak ou.t against that 
liierarchy of priests who were preying on the credulity 
of mankind. This was the spirit and power of the 
Lutheran protest against Eome. It was not creed 
against creed, it was not creed at all in the beginning ; 
it was reality against formalism, the prophet against 
the priest. It was not so much the casting off of 
theological absurdities, as it was the uprising of tli6 
human heart against ecclesiastical immoralities. 



zSo Romanism. 

So witli the immoral but very profitable tiafiic wbicli 
Eome carried on with relics of the dead. It cnnningly 
seized upon one of the strongest cords of human 
nature; for although we call it superstition, yet is 
there a profound feeling at the bottom of this venera- 
tion for relics. How oft have we wept with affection 
over a lock of hair, or some such dear memento of a 
departed friend? "With what loving devotion the 
heart clings to the slightest thing that brings back to 
us a name hallowed in our affections ? The shirt in 
which Henri TV. of France received the dagger of 
Eavaillac is still preserved and exhibited to the admir- 
ing patriot. The friends of Nelson preserve the coat 
in which he fell at Trafalgar. And so the patriotic 
American will perform his pilgrimage to the old 
Stone House at Newburgh, once the head-quarters of 
Washington, filled with sacred mementos of the Eevo- 
lution ; and how do your people bend with affection 
and emotion over the immortal tomb at Mount Yer* 
non ! ThQ feeling to which these things appeal is one 
of the deepest and holiest of human nature, and it haa 



Romanism. 28 j 

been successfully used by Eome to rob tbe poor and 
encbant tbe buman beart witb its pretensions. Tbe 
mind turns away witb disgust from tbe monstrous 
impostures wbicb it bas practised in tbe trafl&c of 
relics. Lord Oxford mentions baving seen for sale at 
a small town in Italy, among otber relics, a finger nail 
from tbe band of St. Peter, a bit of tbe worm tbat 
never dies, preserved in spirits, a quill from tbe cock 
tbat crew at tbe crucifixion, and tbe cbemise of tbe 
Holy Virgin. His lordsbip says : " Tbe good man 
tbat sbowed us all tbese commodities was got in sucb 
a train of calling tbem tbe blessed tbis, and tbe blessed 
tbat, tbat at last be sbowed us a ' bit of tbe blessed 
fig-tree tbat Cbrist cursed.' " 

Tbere was a time wben tbe Bisbop of Treves, like 
Leo. X., wanted money for tbe completion of bis 
catbedral. Tbat cburcb possessed a relic, tbe coat 
witbout seam worn by our Saviour. Tbis tbe bisbop 
determined sbould be tbe " golden fleece" of Treves. 
He summoned pilgrims to pay tbeir veneration to tbe 
garment, and witb magnanimous audacity, founded 



282 Romanism. 

tlie pilgrimage on the bull of Leo. X. in 1514. That 
bull promised ^' a full remission of sins in all future 
times to all believers who go in pilgrimage to the 
exhibition of the Holy Coat at Treves, sincerely con- 
fess and repent of their sins, or at least have a firm 
intention to do so, and moreover contribute largely to 
the decoration of the Cathedral at Treves." A million 
and a half of people obeyed this call in six weeks, 
and the deluded multitude were heard oij. bended knees 
to say, ^' Holy Coat, to thee I come ; Holy Coat, to 
thee I pray ; Holy Coat, pray for me." 

ITow who shall compute the stupifying and brutal- 
izing effects of such a religion ? Who will dare say 
that a principle which so debases reason is not like 
bands of iron around the expanding heart and strug- 
gling limbs of modern freedom ? Who will dare tell 
me that this terrible Church does not lie upon the 
bosom of the present time like a vast unwieldy and 
offensive corpse, crushing the life-blood out of the 
body of mo(iern civilization ? It is not as a religious 
creed that we are looking at this thing; it is not for its 



Romanism. 283 

theological sins that we are here to condemn it ; but it 
is its effect upon civilization and upon political and 
social freedom, tliat we are discussing. Wliat must be 
the ultimate political night that settles upon a people 
who are without individuality of opinions and inde- 
pendence of will, and whose brains are made tools of 
in the hands of a clan or an order ! Look out there into 
that sad Europe, and see it all ! See, there, how the 
Catholic element everywhere marks itself with night, 
and drags the soul, and energies, and freedom of the 
people backwards and downwards into political and 
social inaction — ^into unfathomable quagmires of death! 

You see it upon the soil, upon commerce, upon 
trade, u.pon industry, upon every resource of national 
greatness, upon the very face- of the people, where 
submission and ignorance sit enthroned over the 
crushed and degraded intellect. In all Catholic coun- 
tries on the face of the globe the jail is greater than 
the school-house — the hospital for the infirm, than the 
means of self-support and self-respect. 

Look for instance at Catholic and Protestant Ger« 



284 Romanism. 

many. The quick eye of Mirabeau saw the great 
disparity. He said, ^' The want of knowledge and 
industry of Catholic Germany must be attributed tc 
the bigotry which in those superb countries sways 
both government and people. Festivals, processions, 
pilgrimages, mummery, render the latter idle, stupid, 
and careless. The sway of the priests renders them 
ignorant, despotic, cruel, and above all, implacably 
inimical to everything that might enlighten the human 
mind. These two causes are eternally destructive of 
all human knowledge, and the ruin of knowledge 
brings on that of commerce and industry." 

The Didionnaire de la Conversation says : *' The way 
of the Austrian government has ever been to insure 
the streng*thening and development of the statu quo^ 
There is neither liberty of thought, of commerce, nor 
of home in Austria. Progress is the terror of all 
Catholic countries, but especially of Austria, Bavaria, 
ap-d Italy ! 

To go no further back than the sixteenth century, 
from that time until now, no change has come over 



Romanism. 285 

their policy. There they are as they were three cen- 
turies ago, down in eternal stagnation and immobility. 

And the people — ^the poor people — ^the victims, 
without edu3ation, without means of industry, without 
the sanctity of home, without anything but the priest- 
hood and the police I 

Alas, Austria ! you do not see that in refusing to 
progress, you go backwards. It is not for nations to 
stand still ; if they are not rising, they are sinking ; 
Catholic Germany and Italy are sinking. But just 
step over into Protestant Prussia, and see how she is 
proudly marching up the hill at the head of liberal 
progress. See her education universally diffused, and 
freedom of opinion everywhere allowed. See com- 
merce, trade, and industry emancipated from the 
slavery that crushes them in Austria. See plenty 
smiling from the fields of toil, and industrial activity 
chasing away the spectres of pauperism and social 
ruin, that everywhere stalk abroad like a mighty army 
of death over the face of all Austria. 

The contrast I have drawn here between Austria 
19 



286 Romanism. 

and Prussia, holds good for all other Catholic cotintries 
of Europe, excepting Belgium, over whicli the bright 
light of liberty is shining. She has found that wher- 
ever you trace the influence of priests, politically, there 
night and gloom and tyranny follow behind. Let us 
next view Switzerland, dear Switzerland, which kind- 
ly opened its. arms to receive me, and made me for a 
time the guest of the republic, when I was compelled 
at last to fly before the infuriated bands of the Jesuits 
of Austria. My heart will ever beat warmly for 
Switzerland, but it must beat sadly, too, when I think 
of the moral and social degradation into which one 
half of it is plunged and held down by the same hand 
which crushes the south of Grermany, and which drove 
me and so many others out of Germany and Bavaria 
because I had defied its power, resisted its bribes, and 
caused at. least one government to place itself in oppo- 
sition to its schemes for enslaving the whole of Germany 
and breaking up the republic- of Switzerland. 

Thank heaven these events are matters of history, 
which will one day vindicate me Jfrom the assaults of 



Romanism. 287 

tliat remorseless band, wlio have caused my name to 
be assailed all over the world, because ihej tad no 
other means to destroy a woman who had ventured 
into the arena of politics against them and their 
enslaving diplomacy. 

Shelley said, when travelling in Switzerland, that 
he could tell a Protestant from a Catholic Canton by 
the dirty faces in the latter. Alas ! that dirty face 
looks out of everything ; out of the education, the 
industry, the commerce, and the whole social fabric 
of all its Cantons in Switzerlandi To see this, we 
have but to draw a parallel between the Protestant 
and Catholic Cantons as they sit there beside each 
other, under the same sky and climate, with a simi- 
lar soil and territorial extent. 

Let us contrast Protestant Zurich, with Catholic 
Tessin, the latter of which has been slowly decreas- 
ing in population sincb the beginning of the present 
century, and what is left of it is poor, dirty, ragged, 
a prey to tax-gatherers and holy orders. Land 
naturally fertile, left uncultivated, the people without 



288 Romanism. 

education, without ambition, and without any of tlie 
prosperity of progressive civilization. Such is pooi 
Tessin, lying there m hopeless stagnation and gloom, 
a political and moral dwarf, and dead at that, in the 
midst of the grand and gigantic scenery of the Alps. 
But take a view of its Protestant neighbor Zurich, 
and see how changed the scene, compared with 
Tessin. The land in Zurich appeared to me to be 
sterile and naturally unproductive. But' the indus- 
trious activity of its inhabitants has overcome these 
impediments of naturcj and where the earth was so 
barren that the hand of toil could not force abun- 
dance out of it, I saw manufactories arising, and 
heard the clatter of machinery, and beheld the tide 
of commerce bearing wealth and prosperity to its 
inhabitants. Seldom does beggary crouch in its 
streets ; only in an hour's time I had stepped into 
another civilization. New manners, new morals, 
new homes, new men and women compared with 
that sad fossil of society, lying just back there in 
Tessin. I said at once, this Canton must have been 



Romanism. 289 

a long time Protestant, to present sucli a scene of 
civilization and activitj. And when I turned to the 
page of its history, I found that it had indeed been 
educated in the Eeformation. 

As this spot was one of the centres of the Eefor- 
mation, it is now one of the centres of Swiss civil- 
ization. 

Look next at Lucerne, with its naturally rich soil, 
lying in the very heart of Switzerland, geographi- 
cally placed to be the centre of trade, commerce, and 
wealth ; but alas ! none of these things are there ; 
even its roads are left u.ncompleted, because its 
besotted inhabitants, still embued with an ancient 
superstition, believe that by enlarging the roads, they 
Dpen themselves to the enemy. You will not need 
to be told that this is a Catholic Canton. It is the 
centre of the Catholic interest in Switzerland, and 
has the honor of being the residence of the Pope's 
Nuncio. 

Poor Lucerne ! made so beautiful by the hand of 

God, but treated so badly by the hand of man. 

13 



290 Romanism. 

This Oaiit<3n, when I saw it, did not seem to me to 
have had its face washed in a quarter of a century. 
Sloth was on its fields, ignorance on the countenance 
of its inhabitants, and filth everywhere. 

What a contrast to Protestant Berne ! Here I 
found the fields smiling with plenty. Education, 
industry, and trade, if nothing else, would have told 
me that the Eeformation had unlocked the prison 
doors of this people. I shall never forget how beau- 
tiful the people looked to me in their clean and 
comfortable homes, and their refined and simple 
manners. It will pu.zzle the traveller to find a 
happier peasantry in Europe than that of the Canton 
of Berne. 

Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you go through 
the various Catholic and Protestant Cantons of 
Switzerland, you will find this comparison to hold 
true with them all. No reflecting person can look 
upon those scenes without being impressed with the 
fact that Eome is an enemy to popular jfreedom, and a 
scoarge of modern civilization. 



Romanism. 291 

The same tMng stares at you in every Catholic 
country in Europe. You see it in Spain, Portugal, 
Italy, and the South of Ireland ; and then how do 
you see it, also, in the two Americas ! Compare South 
with North America. "Will you tell me that climate 
produces the indescribable difference between the two ? 
You are contradicted by the fact, that the advantages 
of climate and soil are with South America ; and, as 
if Providence had intended it to be the greatest pro- 
ducing country on earth, it has the most majestic and 
the longest rivers in the world. I shall not pause to 
picture the wretched condition of South America, nor 
shall I attempt to describe the prosperity of North 
America. I begin to get dizzy myself when I think 
of it ; and to what are you indebted for your superio- 
rity ? To that sharp individualism, that spirit of pro- 
gressive freedom, involved in the principles of the 
reformation. 

In 1781 Eaynal wrote this of your country, " ll 
ten millions of men ever find an assured subsistence 
in these provinces, it will be a great deal." Well, if 



^ 

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292 Romanism. 

that little party wliicli came out in the Mayflower Lad 
been Catholics instead of Puritans, if they had brought 
with them the spirit of Eome, instead of the Eeforma* 
tion, and if those who followed them to these shores, 
had brought the same religion, you would not have 
been over ten millions of people to this day ; then the 
world would have had neither Steamboats nor Tele- 
graphs. These things are too fast for Eome. She 
looks to the past. She stands with her back to the 
present: She inhabits the Statu-quo and hates and 
would destroy, if she could, that principle of progress, 
which gave you your national existence. America 
does not yet recognise how much she owes to the Pro- 
testant principle. It is that principle which has given 
the world the four greatest facts of modern times — 
Steam-boats, Eail-roads, Telegraphs, and the American 
Kepublic ! 



. THE END. 



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